Valerie VanBooven RN BSN:
This is Valerie VanBooven with the Senior Care Industry NetCast, where leaders with three or more years of experience share their advice. Let’s get to it. In a few sentences, tell us who you are and what you do.
Jessica Ackerman:
Hi, Valerie. My name is Jessica Ackerman (www.jessicaackerman.com) and I am a speech language pathologist. I am also a yoga and meditation teacher. I have 20 years of experience working with the older population, providing more than just speech, language, voice, and swallowing but also giving therapy to focus on the whole person. In the context of a full life, how to optimize quality of life. I’ve worked with individuals with severe strokes, brain injury, cancer, people with Parkinson’s, dementia, ALS. I have been a patient advocate and counseled families on managing transitions through stages of levels of care. And right now, I offer individual communication, swallowing, speech and voice therapy sessions. I also run a movement-based communication group called Speak Steady, and that’s the concept of matching modified yoga poses with speech and breath to maximize function. The results have been astounding for stroke, Parkinson’s patients.