Do you have difficulty recalling words? Is your speech slurred? Have you recently lost handwriting movements? Do you have problems with orientation to person, place, or time? Is your voice suddenly too high or low in pitch, very soft or hoarse? Do you ever have difficulty swallowing?

What is speech therapy? Speech therapy includes the diagnosis and treatment of language, speech, cognitive and swallowing disorders.

For those who have experienced difficulty with word-finding or slurred speech after a stroke, we offer speech therapy to stimulate the areas of the brain that have been damaged. Stroke, Traumatic Brain Injury, brain tumors, or other neurological diseases, such as Parkinson's disease or ALS (Lou Gehrig's Disease) may result in impairment of speech or swallowing. Young children may also have delayed speech or language development.

Swallowing disorders can lead to more serious health complications, including weight loss, dehydration, aspiration, pneumonia and malnutrition. If you have the following symptoms while you are eating or drinking, you may have impaired swallowing: food or drink spilling out the lips, food stuck in the cheeks, coughing or choking, a wet & gurgly voice, secretions from the eyes and nose, very slow eating, obvious extra effort while eating, or a temperature rise within 30-60 minutes of eating.

Cognitive impairments might include someone becoming confused and forgetful. They may also show signs of disorientation to time and place. They may no longer be able to recognize people. They may fail to solve problems appropriately (not knowing what type of clothes to wear in certain seasons, how to contact someone in an emergency) or exhibit decreased short-term memory.

The speech therapy department at Avera Marshall Regional Medical Center provides services to meet various communication and swallowing needs. We offer services to both adults and children, and we provide in-patient, outpatient, and home health services. We also perform video fluoroscopy, an x-ray of the head and throat captured on video in real time while a person is eating and drinking, to evaluate the swallowing mechanism.

Avera Marshall Regional Medical Center offers diagnosis and treatment of disorders of speech and language, cognition and swallowing. If you answered yes to any of the above questions, please contact your doctor to find out if you are a candidate for speech therapy.