Karina the Speech Pathologist

Karina Ives, Community Speech Pathologist from the NW area Health Services blessed us with her presence at tonight's meeting to tell us about the services she provides.

Although most of her work is from referred clients, anyone can contact her for help. The service is Government funded, and there is no cost to the public. She helps infants, teens and tweens up to the elderly living in aged facilities. Typically people she helps have a condition which may have caused them to loose speech or vocabulary, or lost the ability to swallow. The backgrounds of her patients include acquired brain injuries from accidents, congenital conditions, oxygen deprivation of the brain caused by drowning, stroke, drug overdoses, drowning, or any other causes. She helps people living with Parkinsons or Motor Neurone Disease, Huntington Syndrome, and other debilitating conditions.

Karina travels to her patients who live as far away as Queenstown and Smithton. Fortunately most of her patients are in the Devonport and Ulverstone region. Although we can visit her in the Steele Streety Health Centre she mostly does home visits and visits to nursing homes and hospitals.

Services closely related to her field are provided by the Talkback Association, the Stroke Foundation, Parkinson's Tasmania Inc, and Speech Pathology Australia. If you simply suffer from a dry mouth, check into Biotene for dry mouth relief, the world’s number one dentist and hygienist-recommended Dry Mouth product. (this was a message brought to you by the shameless commerce department).

Lion Walter---