Jillian I. Transcript
My name is Jillian Ivers, and I’m a speech-language pathologist, and I’m the owner of SLP to Me, and I specialize in concussions.
So how I got into it is I was looking for a career—not a career change, but a change of setting. And I was like, what is a population that I’m really passionate about? And I was like, I love working with young women. And actually, there’s a ton of young women who end up with concussions, and girls are more likely to end up with post-concussive syndrome than men are. So it just—yeah, it just kind of fell into my interests, and that’s how I ended up here, and I love it.
So I went to Marquette for my undergrad, and I initially started as an anthropology major. And then I realized that, like, if I wanted to do what I wanted to do, that I was going to be really far from home. And I wasn’t sure that that was for me. So my mom’s a physical therapist, my aunt’s a physical therapist. I have a lot of therapy in my family, and I was like, okay, I don’t wanna be an anthropology major. What do I do? And Marquette has a great speech pathology program, so I transferred into that at the end of my freshman year.
Q: After you transferred into that your freshman year, were you always set on becoming an SLP and having your own business?
A: So I was always set on being an SLP, and actually I had zero desire to own my own business ever. Yeah, so I always wanted to be an SLP. I finished up my undergrad at Marquette. I did a year of AmeriCorps in Milwaukee with City Year, and I loved that. And then I taught English in France for a year, and then I came back and did grad school. So yeah, it was kind of a roundabout way, but yeah, I came back to Marquette. I love Marquette. I love Milwaukee. And then as far as owning my own business, I—yeah, I’ve worked in the hospitals and skilled nursing facilities for most of my career. I’m over eight years out now. And I actually just decided to open this business in the past year. So we’re a new business.
Q: Could you tell me a little bit about what your day looks like dealing with concussion patients?
A: So the cool thing—what I really love about my job is that I do mobile and virtual. And I would say the majority of my patients pick mobile, which means I go to their house and I treat them in their home. And I really love that for my concussion folks, because then we’re in their real environment, we’re seeing what struggles they’re having on a day-to-day basis, and I can see kind of some of those compensatory strategies that you wouldn’t necessarily ask questions about if you were in an office setting.
So, for example, I walk into someone’s house, and it’s like so dark and I can barely see, and they’re like, “Oh yeah, anything brighter than this and my head hurts.” And I’m like, oh, okay. So you are having huge functional deficits, and I wouldn’t know this unless I came to your house and saw it.
Q: Can you tell me the biggest challenge you would say that you faced working with concussion patients, and then maybe after that, some strategies that you use on a day-to-day basis?
A: Insurance. Just dealing with insurance is a pain, and it takes forever, and it takes away from patient care time.
But, like, as far as for my patients, everyone’s so different, and I really try and be—everything’s very individualized in my practice. And so I meet people where they’re at. We’re gonna discuss their hobbies, we’re gonna discuss their interests. I like how you talked about how isolating it is. I do—a lot of my patients say, like, “Oh, I can’t go do group things. I can’t go out with my friends on the weekend.” You know, especially my younger patients who, like, that’s a big part of their life. And so I think that’s the struggle—a lot of people just feel isolated and overwhelmed.
And so I think for me, like, I try and meet my patients where they’re at. So I never am going to, like, say, “Oh, we need to do two sessions a week,” because a lot of times concussion patients aren’t just seeing speech therapy; they’re seeing occupational therapy, they’re seeing vision, they’re seeing PT, they’re seeing a doctor. So, you know, I have found that, like, there are people who I think would benefit from more therapy, but they’re overwhelmed, and you’re not going to get better if you’re stressed out about being in another appointment, or, you know, you’re just overwhelmed in general.
Q: Yeah. So, do you have any strategies that you would like to share that you use consistently with your concussion patients to help them enhance their recovery?
A: Yeah, absolutely. So my favorite is the stoplight—so, like, managing your symptoms. And you want to make sure you’re in as much of the green zone, and with—I think—the expectation that you will have some yellow symptoms. But then being able to recognize, okay, I’m mostly operating in this yellow zone, or getting even into the red zone, I need to stop and kind of pace myself and figure out, you know, what to do.
Another one that I like that kind of goes into that is prioritization. I love having my patients make a list of what they need to do for the day and then putting them in order of most important to least important, then kind of having them write down, like, a timeframe: “So I expect that ordering this online is going to take me 10 minutes, and I anticipate that I’m gonna need to rest for 10 minutes afterwards because of the vision,” or, you know, for whatever reason. So yeah, I like when my patients prioritize things and then kind of plan it out. And that way we can kind of hopefully manage the symptoms and set realistic expectations.
Q: If you could give one piece of advice, what would it be?
A: Oh gosh. I have so many good pieces of advice, but I think my, like, overarching piece of advice that I like to give all my patients—not just my concussion patients, but everyone—is just: you are your own best advocate, and to advocate for yourself. If something doesn’t feel right to you, then advocate—let your professionals know, you know? And I don’t think it ever hurts to get a second opinion if you’re not—you know, if you’re feeling brushed off by somebody. And I say that even to my own patients: if you’re not feeling like what I’m doing is helping you, and you want to try a different therapist, by all means do that. Like, I want my patients to get the best possible care for them.