Speech Pathology Included Therapy for Vocal Cord

Speech Pathology: Zach Part Ten

Speech pathologists are some of the true trench warriors of brain injury recovery.  They not only deal with the language challenges that come after brain injury, but they must also address physical deficits that can come both from the primary brain injury, but also from other physical injuries.  For Zach his speech pathology dealt not only with brain injury deficits, he had physical deficits, not just from the trach, but also from the broken jaw.

You also went through speech pathology, speech pathology?

Yes, I know.

What do you remember about that?

Yeah.  The number one thing I remember, is I sneezed and my trach shot out, it just bounced off the walls.

But what I (also) remember from speech, doing the memory activities and how to get my vocal cords like working pretty much.

(Because) I had my jaw wired shut I had to just like open my mouth as wide as I could, try to strengthen those muscles and just keep doing it,  Or, hum, like sing and do all that.  I think that’s why I talk so well now compared to like a lot of people  – is because I love to sing in my car and I sing in my car so loud all the time.  I feel like after learning that from the speech pathologist because I was like “aaahhhh”, and you have to go “a, e, I,” and do all the vowels and everything.

Has your voice changed from before the accident?

I don’t think so.

Did you have any speech related deficits that weren’t physical?

Just part of my memory.  You know like things I did in speech to help with

What about learning to use language again, contexts in sentences and things like that?

Like social situations?

I’m talking about just things where you had an idea of a word but the word you said wasn’t the same as the idea you had of it, anything like that? Misnaming objects or having a hard time thinking of a name of something?

I did do that.  But, , I think it’s, (anything abnormal.)

That wasn’t the focus of your, your speech pathology?

No, no,

Next in Part Eleven

Post-Surgery Walking Most Pain After TBI