What services are provided at Nebraska Medicine?
Speech-language pathology staff provide inpatient acute care services at Nebraska Medicine upon consult from Nebraska Medicine physicians. Evaluation and interventions services are provided daily, during the week for all patients in the main hospital and at the Bellevue Medical Center. On weekends and holidays, only new consults or current patients with changes in their status will be evaluated by a speech-language pathologist.
Evaluations are completed by the speech-language pathology staff for those individuals who have experienced alterations in their speech, language, voice, swallowing or cognitive skills, as a result of a medical status change. Following the evaluation, a plan of care is established, with focused goals to enable the hospitalized individual to regain their skills. This plan may involve exercises to improve speech precision or vocal loudness, strategies to communicate basic wants and needs to family and/or staff and/or activities to rebuild memory or attention skills.
Individuals with the following diagnoses may benefit from speech-language pathology services while hospitalized at Nebraska Medicine:
- Stroke
- Brain tumor
- Brain injury
- Concussion
- Cancers of the head and neck or esophagus
- Injuries to the face or neck
- Parkinson’s disease
- Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS)
- Muscular Dystrophy
- Alzheimer’s disease
- Heart, lung, liver, small bowel/pancreas transplant patients
- Preterm/premature babies