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My name is Cynthia Holmes and I am the Coordinator for the APDA Parkinson's Information & Referral Center at the University of Arizona. People with concerns about speech should take a look at the LSVT web site http://www.lsvt.org/main_site.htm. The "Lee Silverman Voice Treatment" is a speech therapy technique specifically for people with Parkinson's. It is an intensive and somewhat expensive approach (16 one-on-one sessions with an LSVT-trained clinician plus a pre-therapy exam), but for the person who is losing the ability to communicate it may be well worth the effort and cost. It is the only speech therapy approach that has documented effectiveness in improving loudness and speech intelligibility. You can get the name of a certified LSVT speech pathologist in your state from this website. If there is no-one listed near you, you might want to encourage your local PD organization, if you have one, or your local hospital to host a training by Dr. Lorraine Ramig and her colleagues. We have done this twice in Tucson and so have a good group of trained clinicians. There are instructions on how to request a training in your community on the LSVT website. There are also some excellent videotapes on the technique, which many local PD resource centers should have in their libraries and be willing to lend to you. This URL takes you to an article by Dr. Ramig about voice and speech problems in PD: http://www.parkinson.org/voice.htm I can be contacted by phone or email off-list if you need more information. Cynthia A. Holmes, PhD University of Arizona Department of Neurology APDA Parkinson's Information & Referral Center 616 N. Country Club Road Suite C Tucson, AZ 85716 Phone: (520) 326-5400 Toll-free: (800) 541-4960 FAX: (520) 326-8591 email: holmes @ u.arizona.edu ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn