I am a speech-language pathologist and started an outpatient adult rehabilitation clinic in Tulsa, OK in 2014, as I felt that adult speech pathology services were very misunderstood and underutilized in my area. One of the most common diagnoses I treat at my adult/geriatric outpatient clinic is Parkinson’s disease. I have been certified in LSVT LOUD for around 2 years, and it has changed my practice significantly. The patients I’ve used the LSVT LOUD program with have all had remarkable improvements. The numbers alone are incredible (for example, I’ve had patients improve their max phonation time from 8 to 30 seconds and increase their volume by 20 decibels). However, I think what I love the most is hearing their personal feedback and comments as others begin to notice their progress- like how their family they haven’t talked to in a while commented on how great they sounded over the phone, or how they don’t have to repeat their order over and over again at the Starbucks drive thru window anymore now, or how their pet comes now when they call them from the other room.
For any SLPs who are not yet certified in LSVT LOUD, I would highly recommend this training. The research simply speaks for itself. When selecting a program to offer at my clinic, I reviewed the research and outcomes for LSVT LOUD as well as several other more recently developed programs with a similar concept; however, none had the strong evidence base that LSVT LOUD has. I love that this program is world-renowned and has widespread support in the medical community, even across other disciplines. The results are proven, and in my experience, LSVT LOUD has been very effective at producing long-lasting positive changes with many of my patients.
-- Tiffany Turner, CCC-SLP