Henry Hecker with his wife, Julia. Henry receives speech therapy through the Katz School's virtual community clinic, which provides free services to the 樱花动漫 community and individuals residing in New York State.By Dave DeFusco
For years, Henry Hecker was a supervisor at Your Choice at Home, a Brooklyn-based home health care agency, and a physical therapist with his own practice in Washington Heights. Beloved in the community, he offered his services pro bono, sometimes buying food and presents for his patients and their children and grandchildren who couldn鈥檛 afford it.
In 2019, a brain injury ended Henry鈥檚 career and deprived him of his ability to speak, but on a recent Zoom call, he was determined to get his voice back with the aid of two students in the Katz School鈥檚 M.S. in Speech-Language Pathology.
In separate half-hour sessions, SLP students Alexa Bliss and Joanna Pace patiently and enthusiastically guided Henry through exercises to reclaim his memory, helped him articulate words and phrases, and encouraged him to advocate for himself, with Julia, his wife of 34 years, nearby.
鈥淗enry has such a great attitude,鈥 said Pace. 鈥淛ust reminding him that he's doing well and noting his progress motivates him. Small steps are still good steps, so celebrating every single little one is a step in the right direction.鈥
As a result of the brain injury, Henry has only partial control of his diaphragm, a dome-shaped sheet of muscle that enables breathing and speech. Taking a deep breath and articulating long phrases have been challenging for him. In addition, he has difficulty with cognition and swallowing.
鈥淲ith Henry, we鈥檝e been working hard on clarity of speech, phrase length and the words he uses and chooses,鈥 said Andrew Christler, clinical assistant professor and director of clinical education for the Katz School鈥檚 medical speech-language pathology program.
During the Zoom call, Bliss showed Henry a slide with brightly colored pictures of the sun, a tree and a beach blanket. Henry was able to, with great emphasis, utter tree and sun, but he needed coaxing by Bliss to say blanket, to remember to draw a deep breath in order to speak loudly, and to produce each sound within the word.
Joanna Pace, above, and Alexa Bliss, below, both students in the M.S. in Speech-Language Pathology, have patiently and enthusiastically guided Henry through speech therapy exercises.Bliss then told him to make a mental note of the pictures he had just seen before she took away the slide. She counted off 30 seconds on her watch and then showed it to him again. After he repeated the names of the objects, she asked him to identify the season represented in the picture. He quickly offered winter, but when she singled out each object, he reversed course and chose summer.
鈥淚 feel like he鈥檚 gotten to the point where he is able to see the beach, see the sand, see the water,鈥 said Bliss, 鈥渁nd he鈥檚 able to keep that in his mind instead of just repeating the words.鈥
Julia, Henry鈥檚 wife, discovered the Katz School鈥檚 virtual community clinic in 2021, after several attempts at receiving speech therapy elsewhere. The clinic offers free telehealth speech, language, cognitive and swallowing services to all 樱花动漫 faculty, students and staff, as well as individuals residing in New York State.
鈥淲e are very, very happy with the Katz School clinic,鈥 said Julia. 鈥淭he services we鈥檙e receiving are much better than what we received at big hospitals, and the students are caring, nice and good at what they do.鈥
The virtual community clinic is staffed by graduate student clinicians and all evaluation and treatment sessions are fully supervised by New York State-licensed faculty practitioners. Rita Rosenman, a medical speech-language pathologist for 16 years, regularly reviews Henry鈥檚 treatment plan with Bliss and Pace, and provides guidance on techniques and strategies they may never have practiced, such as semantic feature analysis, which helps clients, like Henry, with word retrieval.
Alexa Bliss, a speech-language pathology student, is helping Henry reclaim his voice.鈥淛oanna and Alexa have capably implemented the treatment plan,鈥 said Rosenman, 鈥渁nd if difficulties with it arise, they鈥檙e confident enough to know what to do.鈥
Professor Christler said Bliss and Pace have learned to integrate their clinical experiences with the concepts they鈥檝e been taught in the 55-credit medically based SLP curriculum to provide effective speech therapy without the benefit of being in Henry鈥檚 presence.
鈥淭hey're two of our top students,鈥 he said. 鈥淭hey go above and beyond what鈥檚 expected of them every time. They have a lot of empathy for people and that has been as important to their success as what they鈥檝e learned in the program.鈥
Julia said that when Henry wasn鈥檛 helping his own patients recover from illness or injury, he was mentoring students and spending time with his children. His daughter, Lisa, a speech-language pathologist in Ossining, N.Y., encourages his rehabilitation by challenging him to a game of chess, and his son, Samy, makes gefilte fish and chicken soup that they eat together while watching a movie.
鈥淗enry never failed his students and was loved by his patients and staff,鈥 said Julia, who noted that it鈥檒l be their 35th wedding anniversary in June. 鈥淗e鈥檚 doing the best he can now. It isn鈥檛 easy, but he has good care.鈥
