Aphasia Access Conversations Aphasia Access

Welcome to the Aphasia Access Conversations Podcast. I'm Jerry Hoepner. I'm a professor at the University of Wisconsin – Eau Claire and co-facilitator of the Chippewa Valley Aphasia Camp, Blugold Brain Injury Group, Mayo Brain Injury Group, and Thursday Night Poets. 
I'm also a member of the Aphasia Access Podcast Working Group. Aphasia Access strives to provide members with information, inspiration, and ideas that support their aphasia care through a variety of educational materials and resources.
I'm today's host for an episode that will feature three voices, one of a partner of an individual with primary progressive aphasia, CeCelia Zorn, who also happens to be a former professor in the department of nursing at the University of Wisconsin – Eau Claire; along with Tania Riske, an SLP at the Mayo Clinic Health Systems Eau Claire, and Nancy Petersen, a social worker with expertise in grief and bereavement from Ability KC in Kansas City. Each of them have both professional and personal experience and expertise with grief and loss. June is aphasia awareness month, so we wanted to take this opportunity to share the lived experience directly. Today’s episode will address grief, death, and loss: leaning into a much-needed discussion.
Biosketch:
Our first guest, CeCelia Zorn, Ph.D., met her husband Wayne in high school in rural northeastern Wisconsin. Wayne died from the consequences of primary progressive aphasia last August, 2023. Since that time, CeCelia has continued her work as an advocate for families living with primary progressive aphasia and more recently about grief, death, and loss as a care partner. Cecelia brings multiple perspectives to our conversation about grief, death, and loss. She is a registered nurse and a lifelong writer. She has been an award-winning university professor for 32 years. CeCelia reads voraciously, plays pickleball, and is relearning how to play the flute – taking individual lessons, playing in community bands and auditing university music history class. She volunteers at the local free clinic and is an active member of the Board of Directors for Wayne’s former memory choir. On a daily basis, CeCelia strives for a life enriched by kindness, joy, perseverance, curiosity, patience, and collaboration. But she will be the first to tell you, “some days are easy but some days you just crash. Yet everyday it counts because I remind myself, life isn’t waiting for the storm to pass it’s about learning to dance in the rain.”
 
Tania Riske, MS, CCC-SLP is a speech-language pathologist at Mayo Health Systems – Eau Claire. She initially entered the speech language pathology field through her volunteer work with the Chippewa Valley Aphasia Group and graduated from the University of Wisconsin – Eau Claire Communication Sciences and Disorders program. Currently, she serves as an adjunct faculty member at UW Eau Claire, teaching undergraduate courses such as anatomy and physiology of the speech and hearing mechanism. Tania continues to enjoy treating patients with aphasia and their families within the LPAA Paradigm. Developing plans of care, counseling individuals’ unique lifestyles, goals, interests, and priorities. Tania is an avid trail runner and equestrian.
CeCelia, Wayne, and Tania were my guests for Episode 49 – Primary Progressive Aphasia: A conversation with Wayne Zorn, CeCelia Zorn, and Tania Riske.
Nancy Petersen, MSW. Nancy grew up just outside Tulsa, OK and has an undergraduate degree in Speech Language Pathology from Oklahoma State University. She received a Master of Social Work from Jane Addams School of Social Work at the University of Illinois at Chicago, where she worked in urban hospitals and neighborhoods. Nancy is currently a Community Liaison for Ability KC, assisting patients as they transition from acute care to an intensive outpatient complex neuro-trauma rehab program. Her job also involves providing conferences and education to the medical and ge

Dr. Janet Patterson: Welcome to this Aphasia Access Aphasia Conversations Podcast, a series of conversations about aphasia, the LPAA model, and aphasia programs that follow this model. My name is Janet Patterson. I am a Research Speech-Language Pathologist at the VA Northern California Healthcare System in Martinez, California, and a member of the Aphasia Access Conversations Podcast Working Group. Aphasia Access strives to provide members with information, inspiration, and ideas that support their efforts in engaging with persons with aphasia and their families through a variety of educational materials and resources. I am the host for our episode that will feature Robin Pollens, in which you will hear about the transformative power of mentoring. These Show Notes accompany the conversation with Robin but are not a verbatim transcript.
  In this episode you will hear about:
1. the presentation of the Aphasia Access, Sandra O. Glista Excellence in Mentoring award to Robin Pollens,
2. stories about mentoring from Robin’s career as a speech-language pathologist, and
3. the power of a mentoring relationship to affect the relationship with people whom you mentor, from whom you receive mentoring, and with whom you share mentoring opportunities.
 
I am delighted to be speaking with my dear friend and longtime LPAA colleague, Robin Pollens. Robin is an ASHA certified speech language pathologist and held the positions of adjunct assistant professor in the Department of Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences at Western Michigan University, and clinical supervisor and coordinator in the Aphasia Communication Enhancement program. She also provided clinical speech-language pathology services through home health, and skilled nursing outpatient clinics.  
In addition to her focus on LPAA, Robin is passionate about graduate education in speech-language pathology, palliative care, interprofessional collaboration and ethics, and has written and lectured nationally and internationally on these topics. 
In 2023 Robin was awarded the Sandra O. Glista Excellence in Mentoring award from Aphasia Access. 2023 marks the inaugural award given to both Robin and Leora Cherney from the Shirley Ryan Ability Lab in Chicago. The “Sandy” is awarded by Aphasia Access and recognizes an exceptional mentor who has demonstrated unwavering commitment, unparalleled guidance, and profound impact on the professional and personal development of others working in the aphasia community. The award is named in honor of Sandy Glista, one of the founders of Aphasia Access, and is a testament to her enduring legacy, and a reminder of the transformative power of mentorship.  
Welcome Robin, to this edition of Aphasia Access conversations.
Ms. Robin Pollens: Janet, thank you. Thank you so much for all that intro, and it's nice to be here to talk with you today. I want to also right now, thank Aphasia Access for this honor. It was especially meaningful, towards the end of my career, to receive a mentorship award and to hope there's something that I did, or I said, or I wrote over the years that was meaningful to somebody else. I also appreciate that I'm sharing this inaugural award with a wonderful friend, Leora Cherney, and that this award is named for my close friend and collaborative partner, Sandra Glista. It's a real honor to have received it and an honor to talk with you today, Janet.
Janet: The feeling is mutual about talking with you, Robin, and the honor is certainly well deserved. Robin, as I mentioned earlier, you were honored with the Sandra O. Glista Excellence in Mentoring award. This award recognizes your commitment to mentoring individuals who are part of the aphasia community, including clinicians, researchers, persons with aphasia, and their care partners, students and others. Through Sandy Glista and this award, we are reminded of the transformative power of mentoring.
Robin, how do you envision the value of mentoring to in

Interviewer info
Lyssa Rome is a speech-language pathologist in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is on staff at the Aphasia Center of California, where she facilitates groups for people with aphasia and their care partners. She owns an LPAA-focused private practice and specializes in working with people with aphasia and other neurogenic communication impairments. Prior to becoming an SLP, Lyssa was a public radio journalist, editor, and podcast producer.
In this episode, Lyssa Rome interviews Dr. Janet Patterson about evaluating and treating auditory comprehension deficits for people with aphasia.
 
Guest info
Janet Patterson, Ph.D., CCC-SLP, is a Research Speech-Language Pathologist at the VA Northern California Health Care System in Martinez California, where she was formerly the Chief of the Audiology and Speech-Language Pathology Service. Janet has also held leadership positions in the Academy of Neurologic Communication Disorders and Sciences, and ASHA Special Interest Group 2, Neurogenic Communication Disorders.  She is an ASHA Fellow.

 
Show Notes - Episode
Next STEPS: In conversation with Professor Ian Kneebone
Welcome to the Aphasia Access Conversations Podcast. I'm Jerry Hoepner. I'm a professor at the University of Wisconsin – Eau Claire and co-facilitator of the Chippewa Valley Aphasia Camp, Blugold Brain Injury Group, Mayo Brain Injury Group, and Thursday Night Poets. 
I'm also a member of the Aphasia Access Podcast Working Group. Aphasia Access strives to provide members with information, inspiration, and ideas that support their aphasia care through a variety of educational materials and resources.
I'm today's host for an episode that will feature Professor Ian Kneebone from the University of Sydney Technology. 
Biosketch:
Ian Kneebone Professor and Head of Discipline (Clinical Psychology) at the Graduate School of Health at the University of Technology Sydney. He is a chief investigator at the Aphasia CRE and has led and co-facilitated much of the work on optimizing mental health and wellbeing for individuals with aphasia. His work on illuminating the stepped care model as a guide for clinicians working with individuals with stroke has helped speech-language therapists and other rehabilitation disciplines to better understand their roles in psychological care after stroke and specifically aphasia. He previously joined the Aphasia Access Conversations Podcast with me for Episode #34. We’re excited to have Ian joining us again, as so much work has taken place in the area of psychological and psychosocial interventions for individuals with aphasia in the past five years since that previous podcast conversation. Professor Kneebone and his colleagues have been at the center of that work, including developing and evaluating the ASK trial, the Kalmer relaxation program, collaborative goal setting, Reducing Emotional Distress in Stroke (REDS)and low intensity psychotherapeutic interventions, among others. In addition to Professor Kneebone’s large-scale investigations about psychological interventions, Ian is a clinician at heart, also very engaged in hands-on clinical work, where he directly collaborates with speech-language pathologists and other disciplines. I’m privileged to discuss these topics with Ian today.
Take aways:
Need for psychological care for people with aphasia: People with aphasia have higher rates of depression, anxiety, and other psychological needs. People with aphasia are twice as likely to be anxious or depressed as someone with a stroke without aphasia. Stepped care model provides direction: The stepped care model helps us to define scope of practice and where we fit in, based upon our level of training. It also provides guidance for psychological care that all speech-language pathologists/speech-language therapists are trained to implement. Behavioral activation: This is a direct connection to the Life Participation Approach for Aphasia (LPAA). Increasing engagement in personally relevant activities is at the heart of both approaches. Ian discusses where solution-focused brief therapy and acceptance and commitment therapy fit into the stepped care levels: With additional training, good evidence is developing for these approaches. There is a need for ongoing psychological supports in the chronic phase of recovery: Increased mood state is associated with better physical and communication outcomes AND dealing with the physical and communication issues can improve mood state. Shifting to “compensation” can make people with aphasia feel like they’re not going to recover further: We need to make sure that we have conversations about those shifts so that people don’t misperceive that shift as the end of progress. SLPs/SLTs need to train mental health professionals to use supported communication techniques to support their interactions: SLPs/SLTs may need training on how to teach other disciplines to support communication. People with aphasia should be involved in co-design work to address psychological inter

Interviewer info
Lyssa Rome is a speech-language pathologist in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is on staff at the Aphasia Center of California, where she facilitates groups for people with aphasia and their care partners. She owns an LPAA-focused private practice and specializes in working with people with aphasia, dysarthria, and other neurogenic conditions. She has worked in acute hospital, skilled nursing, and continuum of care settings. Prior to becoming an SLP, Lyssa was a public radio journalist, editor, and podcast producer.
In this episode, Lyssa Rome interviews Teresa Gray about creating equitable services for people with aphasia who are bilingual, non-English speaking, and historically marginalized groups.
 

Guest info
Dr. Teresa Gray is an Associate Professor in the Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences at San Francisco State University, where she directors the Gray Matter Lab. Teresa’s research aims to improve aphasia health care outcomes for historically marginalized populations. Her research interests include bilingual aphasia, the mechanisms of language control in aphasia, and the role of language rehabilitation and its short-term and long-term effects on functional communication. Her team is working to develop evidence-based treatment methods for non-English speaking persons with aphasia, as well as bilingual persons with aphasia. In addition, the Gray Matter Lab hosts identity-based conversation clubs. The goal of these groups is to increase quality of life for the participants, and the lab is starting to examine why these groups are so meaningful to the participants.
 
Listener Take-aways
In today’s episode you will:
Understand why careful listening is important when working with bilingual and non-English-speaking people with aphasia and their families. Describe how speech-language pathologists can tailor their treatment to meet the needs of bilingual people with aphasia. Learn about identity-based aphasia groups. Edited transcript
Lyssa Rome 
Welcome to the Aphasia Access Aphasia Conversations Podcast. I'm Lyssa Rome. I'm a speech language pathologist on staff at the Aphasia Center of California, and I see clients with aphasia and other neurogenic communication conditions in my LPAA-focused private practice. I'm also a member of the Aphasia Access Podcast Working Group.
 
Aphasia Access strives to provide members with information, inspiration, and ideas that support their aphasia care through a variety of educational materials and resources. I'm today's host for an episode that will feature Dr. Teresa Gray, who was selected as a 2023 Tavistock trust for aphasia Distinguished Scholar, USA and Canada. In this episode, we'll be discussing Dr. Gray's research on aphasia treatment for bilingual and non-English speakers with aphasia, as well as identity-based aphasia conversation groups.
 
Dr. Teresa Gray is an associate professor in the Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences at San Francisco State University, where she directs the Gray Matter Lab. Teresa's research aims to improve aphasia health care outcomes for historically marginalized populations. Her research interests include bilingual aphasia, the mechanisms of language control and aphasia, and the role of language rehabilitation and its short-term and long-term effects on functional communication. Her team is working to develop evidence-based treatment methods for non-English-speaking persons with aphasia, as well as bilingual persons with aphasia. In addition, the Gray Matter lab hosts identity-based conversation clubs. The goal of these groups is to increase quality of life for the participants. The lab is starting to examine why these groups are so meaningful to the participants. Theresa Gray, welcome to the Aphasia Access Conversations Podcast. I'm really glad to be talking with you.
 
Teresa Gray
Thanks so much, Lyssa. It's great to be here today.
 
Lyssa Rome
So I wanted to start b

I’m Ellen Bernstein-Ellis, Director Emeritus of the Aphasia Treatment Program at Cal State East Bay and a member of the Aphasia Access Podcast Working Group. Aphasia Access strives to provide members with information, inspiration, and ideas that support their aphasia care through a variety of educational materials and resources.
I'm today's host for an episode that will feature Jocelen Hamilton and Theresa Yao from Stanford Healthcare. We will discuss how adapting the A-FROM to swallowing disorders can offer a person-centered approach to assessing and treating a person with dysphagia.
 
Guest Bios

   
Theresa Yao is a licensed speech language pathologist at Stanford healthcare and a lecturer at San Jose State University. Her clinical and research interests include head and neck cancer rehabilitation, voice disorders, dysphagia, and aphasia. She is passionate about serving people from diverse backgrounds with communication and swallowing disorders. She was a fellow for life of the Albert Schweitzer Fellowship program, and co-founded the Bay Area's Swallowing Support group. She has been actively volunteering in community groups for stroke survivors who need communication support. She has always been a strong advocate for her patients and profession.

Jocelen Hamilton has practiced as a licensed speech language pathologist for 19 years. She specializes in management of communication and swallowing disorders in adults with head and neck cancer. She began her career at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, and then joined the Stanford Outpatient Head and Neck Clinic in 2020. She also previously served as a clinical assistant professor for the University of Iowa's Communication Sciences and Disorders department with a focus on supervising graduate students and helping individuals with strokes and brain injuries. Her current clinical interests center around the development of frameworks to facilitate whole person care for individuals with swallowing disorders.
 
Listener Take-aways
Think creatively about how to apply the A-FROM to other communication disorders, like swallowing Learn how dysphagia can impact the participation, environment and personal domains Consider some PROs that help to capture the impact of dysphagia on quality of life of both the patient and the caregiver Explore some ways to adapt EMRs to incorporate A-FROM or Swal-FROM into your daily notes Show notes edited for conciseness and clarity
Ellen Bernstein-Ellis
So I'm excited to have both of you here today. Thank you and welcome, Theresa.
 
Theresa Yao  00:55
Thank you, Ellen. I'm glad to be here.
 
Ellen Bernstein-Ellis  00:57
And Jocelen you too.
 
Jocelen Hamilton  00:59
Yes. Thank you so much for having us.
 
Ellen Bernstein-Ellis (Interviewer)   
Welcome both of you, again, to this podcast. And as our listeners get to know you, we like to open with a fun icebreaker question. I'm going to pose two different questions that you've selected for today. So, Theresa, let's start with you.
 
I guess for full disclosure, I want to admit that, I will share--I don't have to admit, I am sharing that I had the honor and pleasure of being your supervisor at Cal State East Bay in the Aphasia Treatment Program (ATP). So I know that may come up today. I just want to let our listeners know that we've known each other for a while. I have been really fortunate in that relationship and seeing you emerge and thrive as such a wonderful contributor to our field.
 
So Theresa, could you please share one experience or role that has been meaningful to you as an aphasia ambassador?
 
Theresa Yao  03:22
Thank you, Ellen. It was great experience when I was in the Aphasia Treatment Program at Cal State East Bay. So that's actually one of the experiences I wanted to share as an opening, because I was at the Aphasia Treatment Program as a co-director for the choir, Aphasia Tones. And that was one of the best memory in my lif