For people who have been diagnosed with Parkinson’s, it is important to get good advice from health care professionals, including speech, physical, and occupational therapists. All of these therapists can make life much easier and help with the adjustments to living with this disease.
Soon people come to realize that all kind of special therapies can give relief from symptoms, help with the pain, and can even enhance their lives during treatment. One of the most important things to remember is that even if you have been diagnosed with Parkinson’s, it does not mean you have to give up on life.
Speech Therapy
Speech therapy can help people with Parkinson’s increase their voice volume, improve their pronunciation with words and make their speech clearer. This kind of therapy can also help with swallowing difficulties and it can also help with nonverbal communications like facial expression. Another thing that speech therapy can help with is when a stutter develops. If started early enough, and performed regularly, speech therapy can provide great benefits. It can make people more confident when they go out in public or if they have to go to work.
Physical Therapy
Another kind of therapy that can help people with Parkinson’s is physical therapy. Physical therapists can help restore function, can help with mobility, relieve pain as well as prevent or limit permanent physical disabilities. What people going through physical therapy discover is that it can restore, maintain and promote overall physical well-being and health. Other ways this kind of therapy helps is that it increases strength, endurance and control. It can improve flexibility, gait and balance. It is important for people to get into a daily exercise routine so that they can keep being mobile.
Occupational Therapy
To help people diagnosed with Parkinson’s there is also the possibility of occupational therapy. This kind of therapy teaches people alternative methods of performing their everyday tasks, like dressing and eating. Occupational therapy can help people become independent once more. These kinds of therapists can evaluate your home and offer suggestions to make your home safer and easier to get around in. Another thing that they can do is to look over the work environment and it’s use of technology, so that people with this disease can continue functioning and working.
So for people who have been diagnosed with Parkinson’s, it is advisable to find out about all of the kinds of therapies available from their doctor. It all depends on how far the disease has progressed, and that will determine what kind of therapy or therapies to begin with. It does not mean that all of the therapies available have to be done in progression. People can begin with one kind of therapy and improve in one aspect and then proceed from there.
Remember that all of these therapies have been created in order to help make life easier for people who have Parkinson’s disease, so that they can continue to live as productive and normal lives as possible.