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Stroke and Speech Therapy
November 27, 2008 |
From tutoring to coaching, Ivory Scott has been helping kids for more than 30 years.
His friends describe him as being a very caring man with a great personality. But
after he suffered a stroke in June, Ivory was struggling. His speech was incoherent
and he couldn’t perform simple tasks like reading comprehension or remembering numbers.
“When he came in here he was frustrated. He couldn’t do the things that he wanted
to do, working with the children, the big thing - he said I can’t work with them
on their homework, I want to do what I used to do,” says Helen Mavrelis, a speech
therapist at HealthPark Medical Center.
Soon after his stroke Helen and Ivory worked together to get him back on track.
For two months Ivory dedicated a few days a week to speech therapy. Helen says,
“We focused on reading, we focused on writing, we focused on talking. He had so
much trouble expressing what he wanted to say.” And Ivory was dedicated to the work.
He says, “I was excited about coming here. They were motivational and encouraging.
I felt myself improving every time I came to therapy.”
Ivory did improve.
Now only a few months after his stroke, Ivory is reading, talking,
and most importantly back to doing what he loves most, helping area kids. “I always
go out and participate with the kids and do football, basketball and help them out
with homework,” says Ivory. He also spent many hours focused on physical therapy
to help him regain use and strengthen parts of his body that were affected by the
stroke.
Studies estimate that more than 4-million Americans are living with the after-effects
of a stroke. |
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