Pope has to learn to talk again
2005-03-01 14:36
Rome - Pope John Paul II will probably need weeks of therapy to recover his speech following last week's windpipe surgery, an ear, nose and throat expert said in an interview published on Tuesday.
"It will take many days, probably weeks, before the Holy Father recovers the functions of the larynx, which are those of respiration, speech and swallowing," Paola Calcagno of Santa Lucia Foundation told the daily Corriere della Sera.
The Vatican announced on Monday that the 84-year-old pontiff, who underwent a tracheotomy at Rome's Gemelli hospital last Thursday, had begun an hour a day of rehabilitation exercises.
"The result will depend on general health conditions," Calcagno said. "The fact that the pope has Parkinson's disease will slow down the process."
Different phases
Doctors say the tube that was inserted into the pope's windpipe should stay in place permanently since the pope's respiratory problems and the risk of suffocation can only increase as the Parkinson's progresses.
With a view to proposing this to the pope - a notoriously cantankerous patient - his physiotherapists will teach him to cover the tracheotomy hole in his neck with a finger while pushing air through his larynx.
In the next phase, speech therapist Antonio Anitrano told the Corriera della Sera, "they will ask the patient to articulate a vowel while exhaling to make the vocal cords vibrate and emit a rudimentary sound."
From there "he will have to pronounce syllables, then short words, and small phrases, until he succeeds in sustaining his breath" sufficiently for speech, Anitrano said.
- AFP