Soundings (10/23/07)
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Visiting Rotarians: John Moles, Gary Snyder, Pete Kremen
Guests: Cindy Thompson, Mary Humphries, Cy's wife Lynn, Dr. Barbara Mathers-Schmidt.
Announcements:
Bill Geyer and Phil X on Food Bank: They announced that Medina Foundation has granted the project $50,000. Next week start demolition?
Membership Committee update by Matt Rose: The new application has some minor changes. They have also implemented a "prospect list".
Grape & Gourmet less than two weeks out! 5-8:30 pm on Sunday Nov 4th. Tim and the committee-heads reported that everything is going well.
Student of the Month
Debbie Granger introduced our SOM recipient, Shelly Byron. This summer she spent in Botswana, Africa, volunteering for the Botswana Aids Partnership, an organization that deals mostly with research. One of the projects she worked on was to persuade mothers infected with AIDS not to stop breastfeeding their children - that AIDS is not transferred through the milk and that the benefits of breast milk far out way the risk of infection.
Sergeant at Arms by Robin Schmidt
Those who painted "the rock" (esp. Eddie), Dennis Archer (for referring to Archer office staff as "his girls"), Bill Geyer, Tim M and Matt G for their performance last week, Stew, Dennis again, Cy, Bill Boyd, Todd Ramsay, elected officials.
Program
Cy introduced Dr. Barbara Mathers-Schmidt, a WWU professor in the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders. Dr. Mathers-Schmidt has been at Western for 16 years teaching and studying speech language pathology and disorders. She discussed her area of expertise: Paradoxical Vocal Fold Motion (PVFM) disorder: A condition where one's vocal folds tend to stick together, preventing full inhalation. This causes more forceful inhalation and creates a vicious cycle that can be frightening to the individual. The cycle is such that the vocal folds may relax slightly during exhalation, but come together during inhalation. Thus, the disorder is called Paradoxical Vocal Fold Motion because of this backwards movement of the vocal folds. The condition is episodic; it only happens now and then. What causes this condition?
1. Sometimes stress-related, psychogenic;
2. sometimes it is upper airway sensitivity;
3. Sometimes it is neurogenetic.
In the case of an athlete, particularly a young athlete, care is taken to differentiate between a pulmonological (lung) problem such as asthma, and PVFM.
For example, Dr. Mathers-Schmidt worked with a successful WWU women's soccer player by using a technique called "aspiratory muscle training", where the player learns to concentrate on breathing in the lungs while simultaneously relaxing the throat muscles. Results have been very successful.
Respectfully submitted,
Stowe Talbot