It’s Week 2 of YouTube Treasures for speech therapy!
If you are just tuning in, this is an 8-week series so you have a fresh treasure trove of YouTube videos, with person-centered treatment ideas for speech therapy. If you’re new to YouTube or want some new ideas for how to use these videos in therapy, read on!
Have you ever used a YouTube video during your speech therapy session, or as a home program assignment? Here are a few reasons why I like using YouTube videos as a therapy tool:
*They are interesting and relevant, which promotes therapy engagement.
*They give information in real-life speed (they aren’t over-simplified). This means that skills or strategies practiced with a YouTube video could likely be used in real life as well.
*You can adjust the complexity by choosing different lengths of information.
* Best of all, there are a million (plus!) topic options, so it’s easy to use something personally-relevant for the unique communication needs of a patient.
YouTube Treasure: Medication Management
Medication management has become increasingly important in the last several years as major studies have demonstrated their role in hospital readmission rates. This is a multi-disciplinary issue in any setting, and I believe as SLPs we are in a role to help promote positive strategies to help patients with health literacy for medication management. Not only can we promote education tools that are at an appropriate literacy level and print size for the patient, we can also use therapy to develop person-centered language or communication tools that help an individual manage their own medications! The Home Sweet Home Series has a specific section of medication management for this purpose.
A nice summary article about medication management is here: Enhancing Patient Education and Medication Reconciliation Strategies to Reduce Readmission Rates.
Patient Scenario: A patient fell which resulted in an intracerebral hemorrhage. During testing, she demonstrates mild-moderate reduced reasoning and insight, with goals to return home. Instead of using generic worksheets or playing games to target this skill out of context, you choose to spend your therapy session focusing specifically on reasoning / insight for medication management, due to the demonstrated impact this will have on her function if this does not improve.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oz3XoVe8-9k&w=560&h=315]
Video Length: 5:35
Therapy Option: For this unique situation, I would use the 5-minute medication management video to look further at reasoning / insight specific to medication management. Watch the video and ask questions such as “What are some pieces of advice this video contained?” (ex: fill 1 medication at a time, checking expiration date, checking dosage of refills, checking storage instructions, not cutting blister packs apart, making a med list). “How does this differ from your system at home?” “Can I see your list?” If the patient struggles with giving you this information, collaboratively decide on a plan for developing tools or strategies to improve this.
Therapy Ideas: If you like these ideas, be sure to check out my Shop. Here are some ways you may be able to incorporate a personally-relevant YouTube Video into speech therapy:
| To Target Strategies or Skills in This Area: | The Patient Could Do This: |
| Verbal Expression | *Explain the steps of how to manage medications at home
*Use new information to “teach back” 3+ precautions during med management *Use word-finding strategies to retell procedural information to family member. |
| Written Expression | *Write 4 main points to summarize the information in the video.
*Create an med management list with dosage and purpose to practice written organizational strategies. *Write a summary or evaluation of the topic/speaker . *Write a persuasive essay or position statement in response to the topic. |
| Auditory Comprehension | *Demonstrate comprehension across listening tasks for *** minutes, with 90% acc for open-ended questions.
*Practice using strategies such as note-taking to enhance comprehension. |
| Reading Comprehension | (Nope). |
| Motor Speech | *Challenge ability to carry-over motor speech strategy or skill while teaching back medication management directions to a known or unknown listener. |
| Attention | *Sustain attention for listening tasks of *** minutes.
*Sustain attention to complete filling weekly pillbox for *** minutes, with 100% acc for following pill list. *Alternate / divide attention for a motor task (such as filling pill box) while also listening to new information (such as conversation). |
| Memory | *Short-term recall for organizational steps to successfully complete med management
*Use safety strategies independently with no cues from SLP *Recall *** med names and purposes when asked. |
| Thought Organization | *Create an med management list with dosage and purpose to practice written organizational strategies. |
| Problem-Solving / Reasoning | *List 3 precautions to be aware of during med management
*Describe personalized med refill process / system *Demonstrate filling of weekly pillbox with 100% acc and no cues from SLP *List 2 situations that might require a phone call to the doctor |
| Executive Function | *Evaluate strategy success during task or plan how to adapt strategies for new situation. |
| Pragmatics | *Use appropriate social language for a verbal task (Practice adjusting to situation: asking spouse a question vs calling the doctor).
*Use appropriate eye contact, facial expression, gestures for presentation. |
Other ways to incorporate YouTube or other web-based resources into therapy are listed here.
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Reference: Hume, K. & Tomsik, E. (2014). Enhancing patient education and medication reconciliation strategies to reduce readmission rates. Hosp Pharm. 2014 Feb; 49(2): 112–114.