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TEXAS: Voice Therapy Helps Parkinson's Patients With Their Speech By Jan Jarvis Star-Telegram Staff Writer Posted on Wed, Sep. 24, 2003 ARLINGTON - At first, Milton Plomer's eyebrows never moved and his voice was so low it was hard for people to hear him. But speech therapy designed for Parkinson's disease patients gave Plomer back his facial expression and raised his voice. "His eyes started sparkling, and his brows started moving," said Linda Bennett, Arlington Memorial Hospital's speech therapy department manager. "He even smiled." Plomer, 75, learned to speak louder and more clearly after undergoing Lee Silverman Voice Therapy, or LSVT, an intensive treatment that helps people with Parkinson's disease improve their oral communication. A free screening to identify Parkinson's patients who could benefit from the therapy is being offered from 10 a.m. to noon Thursday at Arlington Memorial Hospital, Harris Methodist Fort Worth and Harris Methodist HEB. Although Plomer had undergone traditional therapy, he said it wasn't until he tried LSVT in June that his voice improved and he was able to communicate more naturally in social settings. "With the traditional therapy, I could feel myself sliding," said Plomer, of Arlington. "This therapy stabilized my speech. It's not a cure, but it certainly has helped." More than 1.5 million people in the United States, most of them older than 60, have Parkinson's disease, a progressive disorder of the central nervous system, according to the American Parkinson Disease Association. About 75 percent of those with the disorder experience speech and voice problems as secondary symptoms of the disease, which also causes tremors and rigidity. Unlike traditional approaches that focus on articulation, LSVT teaches people to speak louder by exercising the muscles of the voice box, said Bennett, a certified LSVT speech therapist. Parkinson's impairs people's sensory monitoring system, she said. LSVT bombards them with stimulation. More than 400 people who have been treated with LSVT in studies improved their volume, intonation and voice quality, according to the LSVT Foundation, a nonprofit organization founded in 1998. In studies funded by the National Institutes of Health, 90 percent of patients improved, and about 80 percent maintained the improvement for up to two years. The therapy was developed by Lee Silverman, a Parkinson's disease patient who felt trapped by her inability to communicate, Bennett said. "A person who can't communicate is a person in a box," she said. When he began the therapy, Plomer said he felt as if he was shouting at people, but he soon realized that his voice was perceived as normal by others. Today, Plomer, a retired aeronautical engineer, is comfortable talking in social settings and teaching a Sunday school class. "Before this, I was deteriorating to the point that I was ready to quit," he said. "Now people understand and hear me better." Lee Silverman Voice Therapy The therapy helps people with Parkinson's disease improve their speech. Free screenings lasting about 15 minutes will be offered from 10 a.m. to noon Thursday at: • Arlington Memorial Hospital, Meeting Room B • Harris Methodist Fort Worth, Classroom D of the Education Center • Harris Methodist HEB, Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Center, 251 Westpark Way; register by calling (888) 4-HARRIS. • For general information, call (888) 606-5788. SOURCE: Texas Health Resources ONLINE: For more about LSVT, go to http://www.lsvt.org Jan Jarvis, (817) 548-5423 [log in to unmask] SOURCE: The Fort Worth Star Telegram, TX http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/6847954.htm * * * ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn