Parkinson Voice Project Inc

Causes: Health, Nerve, Muscle & Bone Diseases, Neurology & Neuroscience, Rehabilitative Care

Mission: To preserve the voices of individuals with parkinson's and related neurological disorders through intensive speech therapy, follow up support, research, education, and community awareness.

Programs: One in one hundred adults over the age of 60 will be diagnosed with parkinson's. Of these individuals, nearly 90% will develop speech and swallowing issues. Without adequate treatment, these patients are at high risk of losing their ability to speak and to swallow. This can lead to isolation, dependence on others, feeding tubes, multiple hospitalizations, and death resulting from aspiration pneumonia caused by swallowing deficits. Since the muscles used for speaking are also used for swallowing, speech therapy is about much more than improving one's communication skills. Parkinson voice project specializes in the treatment of speech disorders related to parkinson's disease. The organization has developed a two-part treatment approach that includes individual speech therapy (speak out! ) followed by ongoing group therapy (the loud crowd). Speak out! Typically consists of twelve speech therapy sessions conducted by a licensed speech-language pathologist. Together, the patient and speech-language pathologist work their way through a speak out! Therapy workbook that consists of speech, voice and cognitive exercises. After completing speak out! , patients transition to the loud crowd. Since parkinson's is a progressive, degenerative condition for which there is no cure, ongoing support and encouragement is crucial to helping patients maintain their speaking abilities throughout the disease process. The loud crowd provides this support through speech therapy groups and a singing program. Each year, parkinson voice project hosts a performance where nearly 100 people with parkinson's sing for a crowd of 1,000+ family, friends and community supporters. As patients are rehearsing for their show, their voices become stronger. Parkinson voice project facilitates over 500 loud crowd groups annually. Parkinson voice project's vision is that every person with parkinson's around the globe will have access to its two-part therapy approach. This organization provides training to speech-language pathologists through in-person workshops and online training. To date, over 1,300 speech-language pathologists have been trained in the speak out! And loud crowd treatment protocols. In 2017, parkinson voice project added on a 3,200 square feet "parkinson's education center" to its speech therapy clinic. The organization now hosts lectures presented by renowned experts, which are livestreamed on its website and then posted online to benefit the global parkinson's community. Since the parkinson's education center opened, over 67,000 people have viewed the presentations through social media platforms.