Tag: Dr. Garima Vegivada

Health

Speech-Language Pathologist play significant role in stroke patient’s rehabilitation from language impairments!

Oct 28, 2020 by Gouri Achary 0 Comments #Dr. Garima Vegivada, #Speech-Language Pathologist, #stroke

Dr. Garima Vegivada, Clinical Director- Speech-Language Pathology, Hear ‘N’ Say Clinic, Secunderabad.

Stroke is a sudden interruption in the blood supply of the brain. Most strokes are caused by an abrupt blockage of arteries leading to the brain (ischemic stroke), other strokes are caused by bleeding into brain tissue when a blood vessel bursts (hemorrhagic stroke). Because stroke occurs rapidly and requires immediate treatment, stroke is also known as a brain attack.

The effects of a stroke depend on which part of the brain is injured, and how severely it is injured. Strokes may cause sudden weakness, loss of sensation, or difficulty with speaking, seeing, or walking. Since different parts of the brain control different areas and functions, it is usually the area immediately surrounding the stroke that is affected.

Stroke is one of the leading causes of death and disability in India. As per the latest statistics the estimated adjusted prevalence rate of a stroke range from 84-262/100,000 in rural and 334-424/100,000 in urban areas. The incidence rate is 119-145/100,000 based on recent population-based studies. There is also a wide variation in case-fatality rates with the highest being 42% in Kolkata.

Crucial Role Occupational Therapists’ Play

Receiving quality occupational therapy treatment and intervention can significantly improve a stroke patient’s recovery. Research indicates that patients who work with Occupational Therapists (OT’s) are more likely to regain function in their daily lives and are better equipped to return to independent living.

Occupational Therapists are essential in helping patients discover new ways of living that benefit themselves and their families. Occupational by its name, as is clear refers to things/skills needed to perform daily activities such as the ability to maintain balance, concentrate, retain information, and even reach for an object. The goal of the therapist is to improve sensory and motor activities that are damaged to relearn these basic movements.

Speech-Language Pathology’s Role in Stroke Recovery

Stroke recovery is a complex process that varies from one patient to other. Because of this, Speech-Language Pathologists play an important role in a stroke patient’s rehabilitation. However, with one-fourth of stroke patients suffering from language impairments, a Speech-Language Pathologist usually plays a sizable role in most stroke patient’s recovery. Here are a few of the responsibilities you can expect them to take part in during the recovery process.

Help patients relearn how to communicate

Depending on which area of the brain is affected by the stroke, patients may either have difficulty communicating their thoughts through words or writing or have difficulty understanding spoken or written language. Either way, Speech-Language Pathologist’s are equipped to help both of these conditions. They use different techniques and exercises to help patients circumvent their disabilities such as making symbol cue cards or simply repeating phrases with their patient. All of this is done with the end goal of helping the patient relearn their communication skills or learn new methods of communicating.

Help patients with self-awareness

In fact, Speech-Language Pathologists go well beyond Speech and Language therapy. They help stroke patients regain their self-awareness, right from helping a patient learn that they don’t swallow all of their food during meals to how to comb their hair. A Speech-Language Pathologist may set up different daily challenges such as basic cleaning, to personal grooming to help a patient recover their self-awareness. These skills will help a stroke survivor’s day to day life become less frustrating as their recovery goes on. The extensive duties of a speech-language pathologist in stroke recovery differ with each patient, but for every patient, they make an incredible difference.

Benefits of Occupational & Speech Therapy

Improvement in Quality of Life

The primary benefit of speech and occupational therapy is an improvement in the quality of life. With the help of occupational therapy, patients sensory and motor abilities can be improved where a survivor can relearn their valuable skills like cooking, using a computer, grooming, and other activities they do in normal life. Speech therapy helps in the improvement in the patient’s speech which they have lost after a stroke.

Learning strategies to overcome challenges

Therapists teach survivors to overcome the challenges via different strategies via practical strategies. They teach them how to divide the complex challenges into smaller parts to solve and overcome. Patients also learn how to compensate for their new abilities and strategize to overcome challenges.

Coping with challenges and returning to routine activities

Therapists address the challenges brought on by stroke which may include physical, cognitive, and emotional challenges. Therapists help stroke patients to identify the activities they need or want to do and then will show strategies that help them return to most of their favourite activities.

 

 

Business World

Children with special needs getting left behind during COVID 19

Aug 4, 2020 by Gouri Achary 0 Comments #Children with special needs, #Dr. Garima Vegivada

Ten-year-old Madhav (name changed), attends school but is non-verbal. He used to spend his days learning from a special education teacher, interacting with peers and working with speech, physical and occupational therapists. The 10-year-old’s moods worsened and his distractions only grew by the days after his school shut in March due to the coronavirus outbreak. This behaviour of his perturbed the family and they were worried to no end. Though Madhav eventually calmed down after a few weeks, the family was at wit’s end to make sense of his erratic behaviour. A lot of kids with disabilities find comfort in routine when that routine gets disrupted, their anxiety goes up and tend to behave differently.

The pandemic disrupted the lives of children across the board, but it caused immense stress for those with disabilities, especially the hearing and speech impaired and children with Autism and other sensory processing disorders. Parents and child experts alike are definitely worried about their emotional state in these intense times, compounding the concern is the impact of lack of in-person instruction on children with special needs in the long run. These Special Children have unique needs and deserve greater personal attention, continuous engagement and more consistent care. Extraordinary situations like the current one leading to the closure of schools and non-emergency therapies, result in loss of skills the special kids assiduously acquired over a period of time. Lack of daily therapies in such children actually leads to overall backsliding. Since these kids need full-time care and they not going back to their routine at the earliest impacts the family’s social and financial fortunes, with several being working parents busy with their daily routines while struggling to make ends meet.

However, telerehabilitation widely practised abroad can retrieve the situation and provide the much-needed solace to such children and their parents. It’s not been popular in our country due to lack of or poor tele-connectivity, but with COVID 19, we along with the world have seamlessly moved online and telerehabilitation becomes a real possibility. This enables not just the children in cities but even those in the remotest part to access and benefit from the therapies.

Tele-practice is backed by over 40 years of research, officially approved by ASHA (American Speech and Language Association) in 2005, and more than 27 studies and articles show it is as effective as in-person therapy. It may not be suitable for every child or adult, but the majority of the special needs persons can benefit. Tele-practice, also known as “online speech therapy” involves video conferencing, interactive activities, assessments, progress tracking. Keeping child’s interest in mind, systematic plans are discussed with parents before the session and children are encouraged to perform activities using toys and household items which are easily available at home and more, through a private and secure virtual classroom. The patient gets the therapy right at his home from a certified therapist over the Internet.

Eight-year-old Viren, who was a regular for one to one session at a therapy clinic, had an abrupt disruption due to lockdown. As he started showing severe behavioural changes, his parents explored options, to their delight they hit upon the online speech therapy. By then a handful of trained Hearing and speech therapists adept at tele-practice started offering the highly skilful service. Initially, his parents were apprehensive about the quality and the child’s attention span for it. But therapist specially trained for online therapy made his sessions so interesting and engaging that the child hasn’t missed even a single session since then. Because the therapy is being rendered in the precincts of their home, the entire family got involved and the child has shown enormous improvement. The parents too are immensely relieved, as they are spared of regular long commutes to the clinic involving time and effort. This need of the hour treatment option, however, needs greater awareness for more and more children and parents in distress and those in the remote areas with no access to such therapies, to benefit.

Dr. Garima Vegivada

Clinical Director- Speech-Language Pathology,

Hear ‘N’ Say Clinic, Secunderabad.