WHITEFISH — The Parkinson's Voice Project is making its way to Flathead County.
The Whitefish Therapy and Sports Center is the only recipient in all of northwest Montana to receive a grant from the Speak Out and Loud Crowd to start a Parkinson's Education Group.
The website parkinsons.org reports nearly 1 million people in the US are currently living with Parkinson's.
The Center will use the grant to receive training to work with people with Parkinson's on their speech.
"People with Parkinson's might notice their voice to become a lot softer or more mumbled. And so, this technique in this specific training focuses on using intent and building their vocal abilities," explained Whitefish Sports Center speech pathologist Ashley Glover Franz.
Each clinic that receives this grant will have their speech pathologist will also receive these interactive workbooks that include various exercises.
"So, this was part of the grant provided the amount these workbooks and that there's a sequence of within these specific sequences for working on your speech mechanism," Glover Franz
told MTN News.
Parkinson's is still very active in the Flathead Valley but there have not been any support groups, up until now.
"So, where I came from in grad school in Minnesota, we had a loud crowd group where we had about 10 people come together and practice their speech exercises and they all gave each other a lot of encouragement. So, I think it's really exciting that there are so many people in the valley that can use this service and could benefit from receiving speak out and loud crowd services to learn to speak with intent and to get their voice back." - Whitefish Sports Center speech pathologist Laura Pearce
