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Our Passy Muir Clinical Specialists are frequently asked about therapy ideas and suggestions for patients using the Passy Muir® Valve. Therefore, we have dedicated this section of our website to sharing therapy ideas and tips for different treatment goals, including patient education, voicing, and communication. Many of these very creative therapy techniques and strategies have been shared with us by talented and dedicated clinicians and parents working with tracheostomized individuals. We have included a printable guide for each of these therapy ideas for your convenience.
Therapy Idea: Using Application Software (Apps)
There are numerous apps now available for free or at a low cost that can be used to facilitate voice, communication, and swallowing. Talking Tomcat is an example of a fun app that can stimulate vocalization. As you can see in this video, Tomcat repeats everything the user says and responds to touch, thereby making him a cute and engaging conversation partner. This app is very rewarding for the youngest patients just learning to speak! This is a video of Ellis and Tomcat having a chat. We thank Ellis’ family for sharing this video. To download our therapy idea guide, click here.
Creating a Storybook
In the spring 2011 issue of Talk Muir, Passy Muir consultant Katy Peck, MA, CCC-SLP, CBIS, CLE, explains how she creates individualized storybooks for her pediatric tracheostomized patients. To read the full article, click here.
The storybooks I have created for my patients chronicle the child’s medical journey and highlight how the Passy Muir Valve has changed their lives. Each storybook documents a child’s individual sequence beginning with an introduction to their therapist and the Passy Muir Valve and progressing to a description of improvements in the following areas:
- Wear-time tolerance
- Improved voice production and respiration in the home and medical settings
- Sensory responses to smell and taste stimulation
- Safety of swallow and progression to oral feeding
- Ability to cough and manage secretions
I encourage the patients and the parents to participate in development of their own storybook as the child increases their use of the Passy Muir Valve. Digital photographs are taken during therapy sessions and are pasted into the storybook pages. These pictures are accompanied by simple sentences and thought bubbles that portray specific activities during Passy Muir Valve use, for example, blowing bubbles to increase oral exhalation or tasting a newly introduced food. Patients participate by sequencing the pages developed or by authoring their story with the photographs already in place. I bind the books together with binding combs, add a transparent cover page, and a durable back page, all of which are available at local office supply stores.”
To see our guide about how to create your own storybook, click here.
