Behind “The King’s Speech”-Speech Therapy

As one of the members of the Toastmaster club, I have been participating in a lot of meetings and experiencing the speech training for the whole semester. Just like the vast majority, I did not know that the speech training could be categorized as physical therapy until I watched the movie, “The King’s Speech.” The speech therapy, a branch of physical therapy, is a mixture of many studies such as morphology, linguistic, and psychology, to name a few. It can improve patient’s communication ability and help them engage smoothly with the society.   

Trailers of "The King's Speech"

The speech disorder could also be classified in several types: disability to choose right words to convey one’s idea, difficulty in swallowing, aphasia (cannot speak), and stammering, or stuttering that King George VI had suffered for a long time. The movie is the hit of the season and also draws the public’s attention on speech therapy. The story was written by David Seidler and the movie was directed by Tom Hooper and casted by Colin Firth, Geoffrey Rush, and Helena Bonham Carter. With its strong director, casts, and marketing campaign, the movie unexpectedly promoted growth of speech therapy market. People with communication difficulties started to understand that they may need to receive formal speech therapy treatment. This is a very effective and efficient way to perform healthcare communication in physical therapy.

Actually, before “The King’s Speech,” there were many good movies touching upon speech therapy, such as “Sound and Fury” (2000), “Autism: The Musical” (2007), and “Music Within” (2007).  In the next post, I will talk about the healthcare communication issues in “Sound and Fury,” to give more insights on how the physical therapy auxiliary technology such as the cochlear influenced the hearing people and the deaf people.

ICT connected Major League Baseball and Physical Therapy

According to many medical research reports in the U.S, the sport injuries happen in baseball games are 58% related to upper extremity, 15% related to waist and central body, and 27% related to lower extremity such as legs and feet. Maybe not so many people know about these figures, but a lot of them do know that they have to do warm-up exercises before really starting to do sports. Such basic knowledge of physical therapy has been spreading all over the world because of the improvement if telecommunication technology and web streaming.

For example, people can obtain the immediate game information from the reporters who are sending out the first-hand news in the fields. No matter it’s the pitcher broke his speed record, the batter hit a dozen of home-runs, or the player hurt his TJ tendon, audience could receive the messages through TVs or the Internet within a second. If one is really enthusiastic about MLB, he/she definitely had seen the following information:

 

MLB Injury Report

The MLB injury report could tell MLB fans a lot of information about the healthcare state of their favorite players as well as their competitors. Some sports lottery websites even do gambling analysis based on the report and the role of physical therapists is highlighted.

There are many medical experts, such as physical therapists (PTs), working for the MLB teams. Some of them became well-known as a result of their frequent exposure to the TVs or because of the famous player they have treated. Here are an article and an interview, “Physical Therapy Interview – Star Physical Therapist Jeff Cavaliere,” giving us a vivid example of how ICT connected MLB and PTs.

Another example is my favorite physical therapist, Sue Falsone.  She impressed me most because she is the first female physical therapist working in MLB teams, particularly for the Dodgers. She successfully caught the media and the public’s eye and encouraged more female to participate in PT services.

Interview with Sue Falsone