Speech pathologist Don Dubret, left, works with stroke patient Albert Buuck.

After Albert Buuck suffered a stroke in mid-February, the only words he could speak were "yes" and "no"… and a mild oath expressing his frustration at not being able to say what else was on his mind.

Fortunately, Buuck, a 68-year-old retired shop supervisor with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, is on the road to recovery. Buuck's progress has been remarkable under the guidance of his outpatient therapist at Chalmette Medical Center's Speech Therapy Department.

After three or four outpatient speech rehabilitation sessions with Don Dubret, C.C.C.-S.L.P., a CMC full-time speech pathologist, Buuck's wife noticed a marked improvement -- particularly with her husband's growing vocabulary.

"We know it's a long process," Millie Buuck says, "but from where my husband was to where he is now, my children and I and our entire family are very pleased."

Albert Buuck agrees. "I've never had one of these bad boys before," he says of his stroke. "But my progress has been really good."

With his vocabulary returning, Buuck and Dubret now are working three times a week on strategies to help improve his memory and articulate even more of what he's trying to say. "Don's great," Buuck says. "He's really outgoing. What's helped the most is how at ease he makes me feel."

Dubret views himself as a helper and a teacher. "Communicating with each other in a wide, varied way is the one thing that sets us apart from other organisms on this planet," he says. "There's nothing better than helping patients who have been frustrated because they've been having a difficult time communicating."

CMC's Speech Therapy Department serves outpatients and hospital and skilled nursing facility inpatients who are having speech, language, memory, cognition or swallowing difficulties as a result of:

• Strokes
• Brain tumors
• Neurological/postneurological conditions
• Neuromuscular diseases
• Head and neck surgeries

The department also provides speech pathology services for children and infants.

Specific disorders treated include:

• Aphasia -- problems with expressive and/or receptive language
• Apraxia -- motor planning problem, inability to voluntarily produce sounds
• Dysarthria -- slurred speech
• Dysphagia -- difficulty swallowing
• Voice disorders -- vocal nodules, hoarseness
• Laryngectomy -- partial or complete removal of the larynx
• Glossectomy -- partial or complete removal of all or part of the tongue

Often, as has been the case with Buuck and other stroke victims, the speech services are offered in conjunction with occupational and physical therapy. Notes Candace Ballon, M.H.A., L.O.T.R., Director of Therapy Services at CMC, "We're the only outpatient clinic in St. Bernard Parish that offers all three therapy services -- speech, occupational and physical therapy -- for patients of all ages at one convenient location."

For information about how Chalmette Medical Center's Speech Therapy Department can help you or a loved one, call 620-7171.

9001 Patricia Street, P.O. Box 1727, Chalmette, LA 70044 (504) 620-6000