UMD Offers New Speech-Language Therapy Program to Help Those with Parkinson’s Disease

DULUTH, Minn. — April is Parkinson’s Disease Awareness Month and UMD is highlighting a new clinic program that is helping patients reclaim their speech.

The neurological disease affects people’s movement such as walking, talking, and swallowing. According to clinical instructor Samantha Burlingame, it impacts nearly one million people in the United States. She says the Parkinson Voice Project gave UMD a grant to create a speech-language therapy program. The program includes individual and group therapy.

“The goal is training clients to speak with intent and to live with intent. So, bringing forth attention to how they’re speaking. Oftentimes patients with Parkinson’s Disease may not even know that their voice is getting quieter and quieter. So, our role as speech pathologists is to help them be able to speak out, speak with intent, to have better communication, be able to talk with their grandkids and be understood, be able to be an active participant in medical appointments,” said Samantha Burlingame, a clinical instructor in the UMD Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders.

Graduate students help run the program. They say they it has helped them with counseling skills, and it applies what they’re learning in class to working with clients in the field.

“What we really appreciate here is that on campus we’re setting them up to be successful speech therapists in the future and within our own you know Duluth and greater Minnesota, Wisconsin communities. So, by giving them this opportunity in our clinic here they’re able to know more about Parkinson’s Disease. To help more people with Parkinson’s Disease as soon as they leave our program, they’ll already have some of that base foundation skill and some application to run with,” said Burlingame.

The program takes place at the Robert F. Pierce Speech-Language-Hearing Clinic on UMD’s campus or by teletherapy. The clinic offers free care to anyone in the community with concerns. You can find more information on the website here.