Testimonials from Adult Patients
Beatrice is a committed therapist who makes an effort to really understand my mother and builds great rapport with her. Beatrice is sincere and truly cares about my mother’s progress towards recovery, and therefore has managed to win my mum’s trust and confidence in her. Beatrice constantly encourages my mother to eat well and do her exercises which has played an important role in the recovery of her swallowing function.
My wife Amy had a big stroke in May 2013. She was admitted in hospital for 9 months. After 9 months, we were told by the doctors to send Amy to a nursing home as her rehabilitation potential was limited. At that time, she had a tracheostomy tube for breathing and NGT for feeding. We were devastated. Fortunately, in March 2014, we met Beatrice and she gave us hope that Amy would improve with the right therapy. We took Amy home and Beatrice would come to our house to do therapy. Beatrice taught Amy many new exercises to improve her breathing and swallowing and day by day, we could see Amy making progress. In December 2014, the tracheostomy tube was removed as she was able to breathe by herself and no longer require suctioning. Subsequently, Amy’s NGT was removed in November 2015. Now, Amy is able to speak in short sentences and eat her meals by mouth. She is currently still making progress with Beatrice even though it is almost 3 years after her stroke!
We have tried 3 different Speech Therapists but it is the intangibles that have made Beatrice so special in her therapy: courage to solve the most complex case while other therapists would shun away, devotion to ensure the patient gets the right treatment, dedication and perseverance to work with care-givers to see the patient recover.
I have been having swallowing problems after my treatment for nasopharyngeal cancer and the ENT doctor referred me to Beatrice. When I first met her, I was in a rush and did not have much time to consult with her. As such, I did not expect significant improvement for my swallowing difficulty. However, I was impressed by how she was able to assess and pin point the types of treatment suitable for me. Within 3-4 weeks I had felt remarkable improvements in my swallowing.
She was also fully committed on our next appointment where she did an X -Ray of my swallowing, reviewed me on my swallowing exercises and accompanied me to my appointments with the doctors to update them.
Beatrice is a knowledgeable and dedicated speech therapist and I am glad to have met her.
My husband had been admitted to Gleneagles Hospital following a hypertensive intracerebral hemorrhage. He has expressive aphasia and has been doing speech therapy with Beatrice since the day of his stroke in March 2016. He has shown much improvement in his ability to communicate and we are aiming for him to go back to work soon.
Beatrice is a very caring and kind person. She is very professional in her job. We are grateful, thankful & blessed to have her.
My father, Mr Tan, had significant swallowing difficulties after his stroke. We were very discouraged when other speech therapists gave up on him and stopped doing therapy with him as they thought that his recovery would be limited. Under the care of Melissa and Qingwen, my father has made significant progress - when they came for the first session, my father could not even trigger a swallow! The previous speech therapists we had seen told us that he was likely going to be using the NGT for long term! Melissa and Qingwen never gave up on him, they kept encouraging and supporting him throughout; and now 2 months from the first session, we have already started to give him food two times a day and planning to remove his NGT very soon! Their dedication and passion can be seen when they initiated making the time to come down during the weekend for one session to address our concerns and to explain our father’s swallowing in detail. We are very excited to see our father reach his fullest potential!
My husband, P, had difficulties fully understanding and expressing himself after having a fall in early 2018. My family and I witnessed the huge progress he made after a few months of regular therapy to the point where we felt he was ready to return to work. Melissa and Qingwen are very different from the other Speech Therapists we have seen. They have been very encouraging towards my husband and my family, not just looking at his language alone, but also considering other factors of his life, which I think shows a lot of dedication to helping my husband improve. The holistic management that they have been providing all this while and the ability to think out of the box to look into various strategies to progress P further in his recovery also shows their passion as Speech Therapists. P always looks forward to the therapy sessions and we are extremely grateful for their help thus far.
My husband, D, made tremendous progress in his ability to express himself after a few months of regular therapy after a stroke. This was only made possible because of Qingwen’s dedication to helping D improve. She also showed much understanding towards myself and D when things seemed bleak, and was a source of support during those difficult times. She never gave up and showed us that there is hope and D will improve. D always found therapy sessions to be enjoyable because of Qingwen’s ever chirpy disposition and we are both very thankful for all the help and support she has provided to help him reach his goals. D is now able to return to work as he is able to communicate effectively with people.
Qingwen started working with my dad, in August 2018, as his stuttering and language difficulties were impacting his confidence and his ability to communicate effectively with others, both at work and at home. Qingwen not only went out of her way to arrange for sessions with my dad after working hours to accommodate his work schedule, but was very compassionate and supportive when he hit a low-point. My family is so grateful to have had Qingwen work with my dad, as her wonderful guidance has helped with improving the fluency and clarity of his speech, thought organization and quality of voice.
My dad had swallowing difficulties after being hospitalized. However, he progressed well under the patient care of Qingwen. Despite the health setbacks, Qingwen’s positive outlook was always reassuring and encouraging, and my dad always enjoys therapy sessions with her. I look forward to seeing my dad improve further with ongoing therapy.
In 2017, after suffering two consecutive strokes within 12 days, our mum became severely disabled and lost the ability to speak and swallow. After 5 months of hospitalisation, doctors and the speech therapists (STs) from various hospitals deemed her unable to ever swallow again. We were advised to move her from using the nasogastric (NG) tube to the percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy (PEG) tube permanently for feeding.
The heartbreaking question we faced was: Would our mum ever eat again? We could not bear to tell our mum, the “buffet queen”, this horrible news. The sadness of never to taste food again is unfortunately the grim reality of many dysphagia patients, especially if the medical team gives up on them.
We truly believed that swallowing therapy with a good ST will help our mum, however the challenge was to find a ST who would not give up on our mum. We prayed for a miracle. God answered our prayers through a miracle worker, Beatrice. The bubbly “can do” and positive “give it a go” attitude of Beatrice gave us hope again!
Beatrice uses creative, simple and practical approaches to teach us how to overcome each obstacle we met in our mum’s swallowing journey. My mum showed improvement with every therapy session by July 2018, my mum tasted food for the first time since her stroke. Tears of joy flowed!!! Our mum was eating again!!!
On 25 April 2019, almost exactly one year since her first ST session with Beatrice, our mum’s feeding tube is removed and she is 100% orally fed! We have the best STs on mum’s care team. Beatrice and her team are professional, responsible, friendly, encouraging, and always ready to help and share knowledge. She is open to setting goals, she is positive and realistic. We also love the energy Beatrice brings to our mum…always cheerful, respectful and greeting our mum with big smiles.
Beatrice is also very responsive in all the queries and concerns we have. Our mum would not have made it to this point without Beatrice and her team. We wish that more dysphagia patients are as fortunate as my mum to have Beatrice as her ST. Thank you Beatrice and your team for taking our mum thus far.
Recently my mother, after her horrendous hospitalisation for chest infection needed speech and swallow rehabilitation. Being in medical practice, I myself was baffled at how much a simple sickness can topple a person over, especially when it affects their ability to speak and swallow.
Thank you to you both, deep from our hearts.
Testimonials from Parents
Melissa has been working with my son, ZY, since January 2017. Over the past 6 months I have noticed significant improvement with my son’s speech and language. ZY is also now more confident in expressing himself and has become very motivated to correct his errors when they are pointed out to him. His teachers have also noticed improvements in his communication with his peers in school. Melissa provides me with constant updates about ZY’s progress and follow up activities that I can do with ZY. She always attempts to maintain ZY’s interest by involving games as part of her therapy. It makes me very comforted to see Melissa’s dedication towards helping ZY progress.
My daughter Maira has been working regularly with Charmaine since March 2018 on her speech and language skills.
Charmaine will see Maira in school twice a week for therapy sessions. Maira really looks forward to Charmaine’s sessions as Charmaine uses fun and enjoyable activities to engage her. As a result, Charmaine is able to win her over and gain her cooperation for therapy. Charmaine is a dedicated therapist who makes the effort to communicate with the school teachers on how to help Maira improve her communication skills in class activities as well as interacting with her peers in school.
She is also supportive with giving me suggestions to help practice Maira’s new speech and language skills outside of therapy sessions.
Melissa has worked with my daughter, V, for more than a year. Since then, V has made a lot of progress from the time she started Speech Therapy with Melissa till now.
V used to be very quiet and did not participate as much during school activities. However as time passed, I noticed that V became increasingly social and was able to engage with her schoolmates better. V used to be insecure with new people, but Melissa patiently interacted with V, gaining her trust over time. V constantly looks forward to therapy sessions with Melissa!
Melissa has also shared with me a variety of strategies and has suggested different activities to improve V’s communication and social skills. Her dedication and passion in helping V improve in her communication skills can be observed from her frequent updates and follow-ups through phone calls after working hours.
She is approachable and is open about providing an honest opinion about V’s overall progress and future plans. As a mother, I am truly grateful for all the support and guidance Melissa has provided for my daughter over the past year
My son, who is almost four, had some issues with starting to talk. With Charmaine’s help, they are now all gone.
When he first started speech therapy, he was using very few words and was mainly pulling our hands to direct us to what he wanted. Also he had issues with the articulation of words such as parrot and carrot which sounded exactly the same. Charmaine engaged him in interesting and meaningful activities and was really able to engage him and get him interested in learning. My son now speaks in clear and long sentences and his articulation has improved enormously after only few months of therapy with Charmaine.
We started speech therapy for my son because he was not using much sounds or words to communicate with us. Charmaine helped him develop functional communication by teaching us and my son to use the picture exchange communication system to tell us what he wants. She also used songs, games, and his favourite toys to motivate him to interact by using sounds and words. My son has made great improvements and is now so chatty, vocalising and mimicking sounds and words when we talk and sing to him.
Siti sees my daughter Valerie who is almost 4 for speech therapy. Initially she used a few single words and gestures to communicate to us what she wanted. But now, Valerie is using a short sentence to request for what she wants. Even her teachers at school feedback to us that Valerie has been more communicative. We are very happy with her current progress. Siti also engages valerie in fun and meaningful activities that encourages her learning. She is also helpful in sharing strategies and coaching us on how to run the activities at home with valerie.
We are happy to have met a dedicated and patient speech therapist like Siti.
My 2 year old son, T has been seeing Siti for speech therapy. Just two months ago, T could only pull my hand to his desired item to get what he wants. We also observed behaviors such as snatching and crying if he is not given his desired items. Now he is able to tell us what he wants through hand signs and using picture exchange communication. His snatching and crying behaviors has also reduced. T looks forward to sessions with Siti as her activities are suited to his level, and she makes it fun and enjoyable for him.
Siti is a passionate and dedicated therapist who puts in the effort to update us regularly on his progress, provides strategies, and activities that we can do at home with T. Siti also very approachable, she readily answers any questions we have and that helps us a lot in helping T improve
My 2.5 year old boy ZH has been undergoing speech therapy under Gwen for around 3 months. Initially he wasn't able to express himself well, using short one or two word sentences at best and cries whenever he doesn't get what he wants. Gwen is very friendly and skilled. During the first session, my son was able to connect with her immediately and follow her directions well. Gwen regularly gave us valuable tips on how to better communicate with my boy and over the next few sessions, we observed noticeable improvements in his ability to communicate! He is getting chattier day and day and we are grateful to Gwen for her patience and guidance.