Alzheimer's Prevention

My late wife and I had often shared an inside joke. Often the springboard of the joke was that she asked, why are you doing it THAT WAY? We lived in suburban Chicago, where often a first - tier conversation at a gathering would begin with: "How'd you come?". The culture will recognize this clip from 'Saturday Night Live' as another version of this query I often heard at family parties.

See now my wife and I driving to that same family party, and she notices that I'm taking a route that is not the typical path we had taken to that family member's house. Again, she asks me WHY ARE YOU GOING THAT WAY? I smiled at her and replied almost instantly, not even flinching in advance for the controlling head slap some husbands might get - "Alzheimer's Prevention".

With time, my wife would beat me to the punch. She'd see me or hear me talking about a job that I had planned to do about the house, at my job, or in the garden. She would comment, with an Irish upward lilt in her voice after hearing my innovative ideas for the job in question, "Alzheimer's Prevention???". She was so smart! Having shared the use of compensatory cognitive strategies with gobs of people who'd been diagnosed with a cognitive impairment, I've adopted their use for myself, much of the time. After all, one day I might be across the table from my own speech - language pathologist.

Just as the medical expert attests in the AMA video cited above, lifestyle strategies that may help prevent cardiovascular disease and cancer will also be great preventive tools in one's toolbox against dementias. Diet, exercise, weight control, medical management of 'the three bloods' (pressure, cholesterol, sugar), sleep, and tobacco exposure are largely within our control with proper guidance. When it comes to cognitive strategies, the often cited but barely attributed 'WRAP' strategy is a sufficient anchor for most of us. W = Write down what you want to remember. R = Recall or practice a Routine. A = form an Association of what you need to remember, with another memory that will easily cue your recall. P = Picture your item to remember.

I will often write short notes on a Post - It sheet - often a sheet printed in a bright color - then I leave the sticky page on my desk the night prior, so that I might get the cue to accomplish something that next morning. My cognitive routine that I boasted of frequently to home health patients, entailed my placing all my personal items carried in pockets during the day, in the exact same area in my home each night. Associations are the easiest strategy for me to use; it's just seemingly how my brain is tuned. For example, when I see a photo of Marina Towers in Chicago, I think of 'The Bob Newhart Show' TV series, since the series opening always showed the buildings. When the Denzel Washington character in the new film 'Highest and Lowest' approached an apartment door with the sign 'A24' on it, I immediately recognized it as the name of the movie production company behind the film. Picturing? That I often rely upon, when I am driving distances and relying on landmarks to locate a turn or gauge a distance to reach home.

The strategies extend from simple recalling of everyday names, facts, object positions, and daily events. "Alzheimer's Prevention" means as well, performing a physical task differently at different times. That way, I force myself to focus carefully, move slowly, and be mindful of steps in a sequence of actions. This might include taking a walk about a familiar route, but reversing the direction of travel on random days. Another: bathing in a tub on one day, then showering on another. Young readers of this blog who feel puzzled at the advantages of doing such a simple task in different ways - age about 50 years. You'll see. How'd you come?

We're Just Not Sexy Enough

I have this rant fairly regularly. What public presence does my profession, speech - language pathology (SLP), have? What do people know about what we do, when I tell them what I do? Is our story told well in literature, or in pop culture, news, film, stage, music, or through ANY VENUE? I'll spare you a review of my previous posts on the subject, but my assessment of our plight is dire. It seems that we're just not sexy enough to have our story told. Is being un-sexy a detriment to doing our job? Will we remain the best - kept secret in town, until a doctor's referral drops? The hard reality of clinical practice in SLP includes: a wide variation in the rate of referrals, especially from doctors; referrals rescinded when patients refuse services,even though communication or swallowing may be severely impaired; uneven education by physicians about what SLP does; a dearth of marketing of SLP services to referral sources, by the persons who pay us and supervise us; limitations in non - productive time by SLP practitioners to market themselves; and little or no budgeting within rehabilitation departments for SLP consumable supplies and materials. SEXY? What about survival? Let's see where the sexy train goes off the track.

The medical comedy "Scrubs" featured a recurring character, a soldier being treated for effects of a brain injury in Iraq. SOME of the effects! You see a physical therapist working with the patient on his handwriting, commenting that she had acquired an "occupational therapy pencil" to conduct the treatment. The soldier also presented with memory breakdowns, which led to some opportunities for jokes, not for cognitive treatment.

The Netflix streaming platform currently features the Japanese series "The 19th Medical Chart", a popular series featuring a character who would be called a family practice physician. When the featured physician was consulted on a case of hypopharyngeal cancer, I immediately expected that rehabilitative efforts would be a serious component of this story. Not in the least - the surgery on this lesion was the outcome. Vocal rehabilitation? We'll see what happens.

And wouldn't you know - even physical therapists can lose their sexy edge! The FOX/Netflix series "The Resident", has featured more than one patient character who when offered rehabilitation after orthopedic surgery, complained that therapy would take so long! The surgeon and his internist colleagues shimmer with sexiness, once again.

So my rants about SLP's visibility, its sexiness, always end up with this realization. We may be consultants who may rarely be used, but we're used because, as Dr. James Coyle reminds us, the doctors can't do what we can do. We help our consumers find themselves, and that journey is only as long as it takes.

I Won't Know What You Do

The day was almost over for me. I had successfully seen two people in my area, and had successfully led them through some activities. I was running now on very little energy. There was a saving grace in this being my last visit of the day, because this consumer had some different needs than the rest of my caseload. She had had a cardiac episode that took her to the hospital, where she underwent a cardiac bypass graft (CABG, or by those in the know, "cabbage"). Your question might be now, how do problems with your heart affect your speech? Answering that question required more than a few minutes, but I felt it was critical for our first visit to establish with the consumer - why I was the expert. I needed her buy - in for the evaluation procedures I had planned for her. If she didn't know what I was doing, why would she want to burn energy and do the work to get better!

She soon did say she understood that the major nerve, called the vagus ("wandering") or tenth cranial nerve, feeds both her heart and her larynx, or voice box. This connection often shows up in the videofluoroscopy suite, when a consumer presents for the swallowing x - ray with the complaint of a dry cough - and the sensation that something is lodged in his throat. Often, the person has a history of cardiac problems. Not only can the primary medical concern affect the larynx's function, but the support the consumer received to breathe during the surgery, would show up as a dry cough. Hmmmm....my listening to her voice told me that there was intermittently, less power in her sound with pitch "breaks", like a sputtering short - circuit in the stream of conversation.

I was thrilled to see last week the new Netflix comedy special by Vir Das; not for the misfortune he had to overcome, but that he had a treatment technique suggested for him that this lady used as well. He cut great comedic hay from this, but it is simple, it's real-world, and it often helps! You'll have to see the special to learn the technique. I told my patient, who had a quizzical face on when I handed her the specialized equipment, "OK, I've shown you how to do this. You gave it a try, and you showed me that YOU know how to do it. When I'm not here, I've asked you to practice using it in your exercise, but - I won't know what you do! I can only hope that you'll try it and notice if it gets easier - that might tell you, speaking longer is getting easier!".

At the end of the special, Vir Das showed what he had learned. My patient did as well - the credit not due to me, but in the faith she had shown, that she would get better.

Do You Have Primary Prevention Products? w/ M. Elwer

Not long ago, I walked through what could be considered a speech clinic of the near future.

You might imagine sleek exam rooms outfitted with high-powered flexible endoscopes capable of visualizing oral, laryngeal, and pharyngeal structures in stunning detail. Perhaps you picture the latest tablets and smartphones paired with high-fidelity digital audio systems, ready to reproduce speech output with crystal clarity. And yes, today’s communication sciences and disorders (CSD) professionals are rapidly updating practice models, with major shifts in third-party reimbursement policies unfolding even as this post is written. But instead of being packed with cutting-edge tech, the clinic I visited had changed in a different — yet equally profound — way. On its shelves were not just diagnostic tools or therapy devices, but something often overlooked in our field: primary prevention products. The inclusion of prevention activities in clinical practice represents both something new and something deeply rooted. But what does prevention really mean for a CSD professional? How futuristic is it to position prevention as a product line? And can most practices absorb prevention into their existing business models?

A Slow-Building Revolution In 1987, the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) released a position paper advocating for the prevention of disorders related to communication, cognition, and swallowing. This wasn’t an immediate call to action — more like the birth of a slow-rolling snowball, steadily gaining size and momentum. To many clinicians, prevention may feel like a radical departure from traditional models. The reaction often goes something like: “Wait — not only do I help people improve after a disorder develops, now I have to work to prevent them from needing me at all?” The answer, in short, is: yes. But paradoxically, incorporating prevention can actually drive more people to your door. In the short term, yes, it may reduce some individuals’ need for intensive treatment. In the long term, however, it increases your community visibility, builds trust, and ultimately expands your reach.

Understanding Primary Prevention Primary prevention aims to reduce or eliminate the conditions that can lead to a communication disorder before any symptoms arise. This can be done in two main ways: • Altering a person’s susceptibility (e.g., improving vocal stamina so someone is less affected by noisy work environments) • Reducing exposure to risk (e.g., modifying a work schedule to give the voice time to rest) For many CSD professionals, this concept feels the most foreign — perhaps because primary prevention isn’t reimbursed like diagnostic testing or treatment. And it doesn’t always look like “therapy.” It often looks like selling or teaching tools, activities, or techniques to individuals who don’t yet have impairments. Can we teach healthy people how to stay that way? Can we stock and sell low-cost wellness products? Can we handle the sales tax? Yes, we can. But we must step out of our comfort zones as clinicians to do so. The return on investment? A stronger community presence, a broader impact, and a more sustainable professional model. ⸻ So What Is the Stuff of Primary Prevention? In this future-forward clinic, here’s what I saw on the prevention shelves: I. Oral-Motor / Motor Speech • Kazoobie Kazoo – $2 • Hohner Beginner Harmonica – $8.50 II. Fluency • Mouth Sounds by Fred Newman – $10 • The Speech Choir by Marjorie Gullan – $1 (used) III. Voice • C.D. Bigelow Elixir White/Green Hair & Body Wash – $10 • 1 gallon distilled water – $1 IV. Swallowing • Ziploc kit with Life Savers & mint waxed dental floss – $5 • Ziploc kit with 12 sterile tongue depressors – $5 V. Cognition • Radius ergonomic garden trowel – $10 • GAMES magazine, single issue – $5 VI. Speech & Language • The New Moosewood Cookbook by Mollie Katzen – $10 • Walk Off Weight with Your Pedometer by Jan Small – $10 Note: Product mentions are coincidental and non-sponsored. These items were selected for their low cost, broad community availability, and potential to support wellness through primary prevention. ⸻ The Clinic Experience In this imagined clinic, the prevention section has its own street-level entrance, keeping the flow of wellness consumers distinct from tertiary care patients. Adjacent to the retail area is a video viewing room with several devices for product demonstrations. Nearby racks offer literature from local wellness resources — classes, community events, and support networks. The aim? To immerse the customer in a holistic health-promoting environment. ⸻ Back to the Questions Let’s revisit the original prompts: • How do we do primary prevention in CSD? • What is the stuff of it? • What are the outcomes we want? We do primary prevention by teaching, training, referring, marketing, selling, cooperating, and participating. We bring healthy individuals into our sphere not just to diagnose, but to keep them healthy enough that diagnosis never becomes necessary. We collaborate across community sectors — with educators, fitness instructors, faith leaders, performers, and health coaches — to support our prevention mission. Outcome measurement may be simple: improvements in health literacy and patient activation, such as those measured by the Patient Activation Measure (PAM) developed by Hibbard and colleagues. The ultimate outcome? Lower long-term healthcare costs, higher function, and more empowered communities. The story of primary prevention in our field is still being written. As we walk through this near-future clinic, we must ask ourselves: What do we see on the shelves? What kind of professionals are we becoming? Next stop: the secondary prevention wing.

Launching Lifesavers w/ M. Elwer

Let’s be honest: as candies go, Lifesavers seem innocuous enough. A sugary halo of nostalgia, lightweight in both texture and guilt. Five calories apiece, maybe. Small enough to forget—unless you’re a speech-language pathologist trying to teach a man how to cough again. This was no ordinary coughing session. This was Mr. H., a retired jazz pianist with bulbar-onset ALS and the wry humor of someone who’s played too many smoke-filled clubs to take much seriously anymore—including me. And yet, there we were, him eyeing me suspiciously as I held out a single cherry Lifesaver and said, “Put this in your mouth. Don’t chew it. Now blow it across the room.” “Blow it?” he croaked, eyebrows rising so high they almost met his hairline. “Lady, are you trying to kill me or save me?”

Honestly, I didn’t know the answer to that in the moment. It was absurd on the surface: giving hard candy to a person with a compromised swallow? In most clinical scenarios, this would have been malpractice, if not suicide. But desperation and science often meet in strange places—and this was one of them. Research had emerged—Plowman and colleagues again—suggesting that expiratory muscle strength training (EMST) could preserve, and in some cases even improve, cough and swallow function in early-stage ALS. The concept wasn’t new, but its application was still uncharted territory. We weren’t chasing miracles—we were chasing milliseconds of preserved function. And sometimes, milliseconds matter. So yes, we launched Lifesavers. I set up a towel runway on the tile floor, marked by neon tape. I positioned Mr. H. comfortably in his recliner—spine neutral, head resting back, feet planted wide like he was bracing to play a power chord. The goal wasn’t candy ejection, per se—it was abdominal engagement. Diaphragm activation. The art of a well-supported cough disguised as something playful, even ridiculous.

“Take a breath into your belly,” I said, miming the expansion with my own hands. “Now—BLOW HARD. Send it flying. You can’t let this candy beat you.” He rolled his eyes. Then he blew. It went about six inches. We laughed. He cursed. We tried again. By the sixth attempt, the Lifesaver hit the tape. By the ninth, it cleared it. On the tenth? It ricocheted off the coffee table leg like a tiny red puck, earning a fist pump and a raspy cheer from Mr. H. And then—something extraordinary. As I leaned down to retrieve the candy, I heard him say, almost clearly: “Don’t waste a good one. That was cherry.” It was the first spontaneous, intelligible sentence his wife had heard in weeks. You can’t always measure success in meters or milliliters. Sometimes, it’s measured in shared laughter, a candy skimming across the floor, or a whispered flavor preference breaking through the fog of disease. Sometimes, what looks like nonsense is the deepest kind of therapy. And sometimes—just sometimes—spitting candy can help someone reclaim their voice.

A Day in the Clinical Life

The time: it could be an hour from now, or it could have occurred twenty years ago. The place: Just outside my patient's space. She might be in a clinic treatment room, or it might be her apartment or home. I enter - "Good morning!"

"Thank you for letting me visit with you today. Your doctor asked me to visit with you, after you returned home from the hospital. Who is the doctor that ordered my visit? It was Dr. _____! You remember her, good! Did you work with a speech therapist in the hospital? OK - what I want to do is to help track your recovery from your condition. May we do that? Thank you. Do you think your ability for _____ has changed, since this all started? Tell me what you can".

"Thank you for the compliment. My mother used to say I was a nice person. I kidded with her in return, now I'll never get a date! But I think it helps me help others. Did your parents or your teachers, or other adults want you to be that way?....OK. I've enjoyed our conversation, all of it, and our conversation has given me some clues as to what you're dealing with - Can we now do something now, that's a specialized way of observing how people communicate? WE CAN? Oh, thank you. I'll explain each part of this, but please ask any questions if they come up".... ....and so it goes. After all the assessment is done, and I explain what I see, and get feedback from her, I work to "close the sale". That's a component of what we do, speech - language pathologists. Improved skills are our widgets, our EV's, and our commodity futures. Our product, when it is sold with clarity, honesty, compassion and commitment; - it's the best. We only want to help you connect.

Time Out: The Importance of the Handoff (revised from 2/5/2017) w/ M. Elwer

The whistle is blowing today—not just on the football field, but on our current blog series about becoming a better SLP. Time out! We’re stepping off the sideline to examine something that happens every day in speech-language pathology practices: the handoff. Just like in football, a good handoff can keep the momentum going. A bad one? It can result in a fumble. In our field, a handoff happens when another clinician steps in to cover your caseload—maybe because you’re out sick or on vacation. And just like a quarterback handing off the ball, the success of that session depends heavily on how well you’ve prepared your substitute to carry the play forward.

Of course, the treatment plan is already in place. It outlines the goals and objectives, both short- and long-term. But treatment plans don’t carry the full picture. As the SLP of record, you’ve likely built a therapeutic relationship, developed trust, and discovered which activities truly click with the person you’re serving. You’ve gathered a set of materials and approaches tailored to that individual. The covering clinician doesn’t have that advantage—and shouldn’t be expected to start from scratch. Why not? Because they haven’t had time to build that same rapport.

The covering SLP might ask questions like, “How do you feel about your speech therapy progress?” or “Which activities have helped you the most?” But if the client doesn’t remember or can’t communicate that effectively—and you haven’t left clear guidance—then the clinician is left guessing. At that point, it’s tempting to reach for a generic activity that’s worked with others who share the same diagnosis. But here’s the problem: a diagnosis doesn’t tell the whole story. What works for someone with aphasia might not work for this person with aphasia. Predictability drops sharply when we remove the individual from the equation. That’s why a good handoff includes just a little extra effort. A note like this can go a long way:

“Reminisce with her about family days. Use the photo album by her bed. Point out family members and ask about what’s happening in the pictures. When she talks about her family, her fluency improves dramatically.” Sharing that kind of detail takes maybe sixty seconds—but it could make the difference between a forgettable session and a meaningful, goal-driven one. So the next time you’re handing off a caseload, remember: it’s not just a plan of care—it’s a play in progress. Make the pass count.