About the Service
Working as part of a multidisciplinary team, community speech-language therapists provide assessment and intervention for patients with communication and or swallowing difficulties. Interventions are patient centred and are aimed at working towards patient and whānau/caregiver needs and goals.
Interventions include:
- Providing swallowing and communication assessment, and advice.
- Rehabilitation programmes aimed at achieving a person's desired level of independence, social participation and wellbeing within their environment.
- Supporting patients in finding ways to compensate for and adapt to their changed/changing communication and swallowing status associated with their medical condition e.g. progressive neurological disorders.
Community speech-language therapists may visit people in their own home/ residential care facility or see them at a clinic in the community or via video call using a computer/tablet/phone, depending on the patient's needs, Covid-19 restrictions and what will achieve the best outcomes.
Communication and swallowing problems can be caused by lots of health issues including:
- stroke
- brain injury
- degenerative conditions such as Parkinson's disease, dementia, and motor-neurone disease
- respiratory conditions such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and recurrent pneumonia
- cancer of the head, neck, throat, and brain.
Common Conditions
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Aphasia
Aphasia (also referred to as dysphasia) is a disorder of language, where a person's ability to use language to communicate is impaired in some way... More
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Apraxia
Apraxia is a disorder of speech (speech is the process of pronunciation and articulation) in which the difficulty involves planning, sequencing, and producing the movements required to make sounds and words... More
- Dysarthria
Dysarthria is a disorder of speech (speech is the process of pronunciation and articulation)... More
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Dysphagia
Dysphagia is any problem in which the action of swallowing is either difficult to perform, painful, or swallowed material is disrupted somewhere in the passage from the mouth to the stomach... More
Community speech-language therapists are also able to access the services of the Auckland wide volunteer stroke scheme. This service provides volunteers to meet with clients in the community who have communication impairments following a stroke. These volunteers are trained as 'conversation partners' and use total communication strategies to give the client opportunities to experience effective two-way communication and social interaction. Patients referred to the scheme by community speech-language therapists may either receive one-to-one visits from a volunteer and/or attend a communication group. To access the scheme, people must first be assessed and referred by a Te Whatu Ora speech-language therapist within the Auckland region.