Getting his life back with help from specialty rehab

April 22, 2019
Ronald Taylor got his life back with help from specialty rehab

Ask Ronald Taylor how he’s feeling today and he will light up your day with his reply of “super-fantastic.” But it wasn’t always that way. Not long ago, he was barely able to walk and his speech was hardly audible. When his health hit rock bottom, his wife of 63 years, Shirley, feared she would have to make funeral arrangements. She took him to St. Mary’s for emergency care, and an amazing turnaround began.

The first step was determining what was causing his health decline. He thought it was old age, but neurologist Joseph Knapik, MD, medical director of St. Mary’s Rehabilitation Institute, attributed many of the challenges he was having to Parkinson’s disease. “For the majority of patients, this is a disease that comes on later in life, although I’ve seen it as early as the 40s,” Dr. Knapik says. “Parkinson’s disease is a very treatable disease in any age group.” Taylor responded positively to medication for Parkinson’s, and within just a few days of arriving at St. Mary’s, he transitioned to the fifth floor for inpatient rehabilitation.

He began participating in intensive therapy known as LSVT Big® and LSVT Loud® Treatment. For patients with Parkinson’s disease, everyday movements like walking get smaller with noticeably shorter, slower strides, and often people’s voices get quieter without them even realizing it. The idea of the Big and Loud therapy is to get them to exaggerate their voice and movements, so they can return to more normal levels.

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The speech therapist worked with Taylor on reading stories aloud, and when she found out he was Christian, he read scriptures. In the meantime, physical therapists worked with him on performing everyday tasks like getting in and out of chairs, and modeling the movements for him. “Once I was able to do that, I could walk better, too,” he says. “It’s a motor retraining skill in the brain,” explains Dr. Knapik. “You use other circuits.”

After about two weeks in inpatient rehab, Taylor went home and continued his progress with outpatient therapy four days a week through St. Mary’s. Today, he does regular exercises at home with help from Shirley, who gives him a loving nudge from time to time. Both of them are thrilled about the independence he’s gained. Before, he needed help with everyday tasks like getting dressed and tying his shoes. Now, he’s able to take care of himself and get around easier, and his children can hear him again since he’s regained his voice. “You get out of it what you put into it,” he says.

Shirley gets emotional when she talks about how far he’s come. “The staff was second to none. They treated us with great respect and I just can’t quit raving about the hospital and the outpatient care,” she says. “It was awesome.”

Understanding Parkinson's disease

Diagnosing Parkinson’s disease is based on observation and symptoms, such as a shuffling gait, slowness of movement, resting tremors and others, Dr. Knapik explains. There’s no single lab test or brain scan that can definitively confirm a diagnosis. In some cases, conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease and a number of others can present similar symptoms, but they are different and don’t respond the same way to treatment.

The LSVT Big and LSVT Loud Treatments are part of a newer therapy at St. Mary’s led by certified inpatient and outpatient therapists. When combined with medication, the results for patients can be dramatic, says Dr. Knapik. “You can actually turn their life around.”