Occupational therapy master’s alum Kaela Dewan talks about the lessons she has learned from the community at 51福利社 as a student and as a scholarship recipient. “Whether it is in ways that are big or small,” says Kayla, “I have found that being a part of something bigger than yourself is always rewarding. So, to those that have supported me, thank you!”

For nearly four years, 51福利社 graduate students have been working side-by-side with faculty at the聽University Hearing and Speech Clinic, learning how to help restore the voices of those with Parkinson鈥檚 disease.

Students in the communication sciences and disorders (CMSD) program and faculty work with patients in the LOUD Crowd group, a maintenance therapy group, to help increase the decibel level of the patient鈥檚 voice so they can easily be understood. Eastern faculty members received training for the LOUD Crowd through the聽, a nonprofit organization that provides therapy programs and training for speech-language pathologists, and now use it as a resource at the University Hearing and Speech Clinic, an educational training facility on the 51福利社 Spokane campus.

鈥淭he neatest thing for me as a faculty member at Eastern is being able to involve students and watch them grow as they provide this therapy and interact with patients,鈥� said Doreen Nicholas, MS, MHPA, CCC-SLP and clinic director of the University Hearing and Speech Clinic. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a give and take from both sides because patients know they鈥檙e helping to educate students beyond therapy 鈥� they鈥檙e learning from patients what their day is like, how it鈥檚 tough, their needs, what it鈥檚 like to be a caregiver and learning the compassion on the side of being a spouse of someone with Parkinson鈥檚. Our students get more than a speech therapy education.鈥�

Patients with Parkinson鈥檚 disease begin therapy called SPEAK OUT!, where they receive individual therapy sessions three times a week for four weeks. Once they graduate from the individual session, they begin attending the LOUD Crowd group to help maintain their skills until their disease progresses to the point where they can no longer participate.

鈥淲e know with Parkinson鈥檚 disease, exercise is very, very important for maintaining the skill level they鈥檙e at,鈥� Nicholas said. 鈥淲hat happens is patients with Parkinson鈥檚 talk with a really soft voice, and that鈥檚 what we work on in therapy 鈥� we try to increase the decibel level back to normal so they can be understood.鈥�

The clients are given daily homework to work on their speech so they don鈥檛 begin to isolate themselves from social activities because people can鈥檛 hear or understand them.

So far, 40 patients have gone through individual therapy sessions, then continue with the LOUD Crowd. In the future, Nicholas hopes to continue to grow the program with the number of patients they see.

In addition to working with patients who have Parkinson鈥檚, graduate students, under the supervision of state-licensed and nationally certified speech-language pathologists and audiologists, also provide other services, such as speech sound production errors, child language delay or stuttering and fluency disorders, at the University Hearing and Speech Clinic. The clinic serves children and adults of all ages.

The 51福利社 Dental Hygiene Department participated in their eighth consecutive Vets鈥� Day this year, providing a low-cost dental services to veterans.

For the third year, the event included the involvement from the inter-professional teams from the College of Health Science and Public Health, who treated 45 veterans with dental care, including health screenings for 12 of those veterans. Dental examinations, radiographs, dental cleanings and hearing loss screening were among some of the services provided.

Together, 120 CHSPH students, faculty and staff, including 12 from WSU, supplied $21,539 worth of dental services. Follow-up appointments were also scheduled for some clients.

Students reflected on the experience as a way to gain insight to other health fields from their peers as well as being a part of a diverse health team.

51福利社鈥檚 College of Health Science and Public Health (CHSPH) and St. Luke鈥檚 Rehabilitation Institute have created a collaborative out-patient therapy clinic program located in the recently opened Spokane Teaching Health Clinic (STHC). The emphasis on this program focuses on student learning opportunities within a clinical environment that provides excellence in patient care to meet the health care needs of the local community.

51福利社鈥檚 College of Health Science and Public Health (CHSPH) and St. Luke鈥檚 Rehabilitation Institute have created a collaborative out-patient therapy clinic program located in the recently opened Spokane Teaching Health Clinic (pictured above).

Located on the Spokane campus, STHC is housed in Washington State University鈥檚 Spokane Teaching Health Clinic, which was designed, in part, to train future health care providers to collaborate on patient care.

The clinic opened April 27, and is St. Luke鈥檚 10th out-patient clinic within the community. To start, the clinic will be staffed with three full-time St. Luke鈥檚 employees 鈥� an admissions coordinator, an occupational therapist and a physical therapist. Therapists hired to work at the STHC will work closely with 51福利社 faculty to provide excellence in education to students enrolled in programs in CHSPH.

鈥淗aving this clinic and partnership with St. Luke鈥檚 gives us a way to give students clinical experiences earlier in their programs, to build clinic-based experiences into our program, to model for our students what inter-professional care looks like when it鈥檚 done well, and to give them access to potential participants for research studies,鈥� said Donna Mann, OTD, associate dean of CHSPH and associate professor of OT.

The site demonstrates inter-professional care, in which a variety of health care professionals collaborate to provide the best care outcomes in the least disruptive and most cost-efficient way for the client and organizations involved. This means health care professionals will acknowledge overlaps in practice in order to design the most cost-effective service delivery plan while assuring the highest quality outcomes.

鈥淲e鈥檙e trying to break down those silos of physical therapist, occupational therapist, physician, nurse, etc. We have always traditionally worked well as a multidisciplinary team,鈥� Mann said. 鈥淏ut in collaborative care, it鈥檚 even more of a mesh. It requires tighter teamwork, tighter communication and clearer understandings of the capacity of every profession.鈥�

Mann鈥檚 hope for the future of the clinic is to create opportunities for other CHSPH programs, such as communication sciences and disorders, dental hygiene, health science administration and public health students while also focusing on contributing inventive ideas to health care delivery.

鈥淚 do believe that the university has an important role to play when innovations are required,鈥� Mann said. 鈥淎nd I think innovations are required in health care right now. It鈥檚 important that we step up to the plate and help create health care of the future with our community partners.鈥�