Agusta University Speech Therapy program helps cancer patients with speech and swallowing problems
Source: www.augustachronicle.com Author: Jozsef Papp, Augusta Chronicle After getting surgery in April for cancer of the oral cavity, Lenny Schaeffer was having problems opening his mouth wide enough to eat anything larger than a grape. He went through the whole process: surgery, chemotherapy and radiation therapy. During that process, he lost his ability to open his mouth, and it even affected his speech. An oncologist and his radiation therapist informed him of a new program, speech therapy, at the Georgia Cancer Center at Augusta University that could help him. “What the speech therapy program did is basically give me exercises to do to increase the flexibility that I have in my mouth,” he said. “It allows me to eat better, more kinds of food and also improve speech.” Dr. Sarah Smith, a speech pathologist at the Georgia Cancer Center, said the program is aimed at helping cancer patients like Schaeffer, patients who have cancer of the neck and mouth area and are suffering from exposure to radiation during their treatment. As a National Cancer Center Network Facility, the center was called to have a multidisciplinary approach to treating cancer, Smith said. Smith was moved to the cancer center in the summer, mainly to keep cancer patients from walking from the center to the hospital because of COVID-19. “Treating head and neck cancer is very different than treating other types of disabilities," she said. "When cancer patients come to the cancer center, we offer a variety of providers, right on site, [...]