For 54-year-old Jolana Varga, singing is automatic.
So when she sustained a stroke on the left side of her brain, which made her ability to speak difficult, her care team at Madonna turned to what she knew, even though it was hard.
“Early on in her stay, that was kind of a sensitive subject, because she felt like that [was] a part of her identity that she lost,” Megan Huckabee, MS, CCC-SLP, CBIS, a Madonna speech-language pathologist, said. “Her stroke affected her ability to express language and also impaired some motor aspects of speech. But in speech we have automatic tasks that we can do, like singing, so on rougher days in therapy, we would go back to those to help the flow come out a little bit better.”
With her husband and bandmate, John, by her side, Jolana approached her recovery with a fierce attitude and determination.
The confidence she gained in music, also carried over into her physical therapy sessions.
When Jolana arrived at Madonna, she had no movement in her arm or leg. Requiring the assistance of two people to get in and out of her wheelchair, Jolana’s physical therapist utilized the bodyweight support treadmill training to advance her walking.
“We were really focused on trying to get her heart rate up,” Sara Hohensee, PT, DPT, CBIS, a Madonna physical therapist, said. “It was so important for her recovery to continue progressing her intensity and repetition every day.”
Jolana progressed to using a cane, with support from one person for safety purposes. She could also use the stairs.
“She made leaps and bounds while she was here,” Hohensee said.
Then, when her care team saw her walking and singing at the same time, it was music to their ears.
Combining physical therapy and speech therapy, Huckabee and Hohensee decided to challenge her. And with John playing the guitar for her, she thrived.
“She was almost keeping rhythm while she was walking and singing, which I thought was really awesome,” Huckabee said. “I think that also helped her over the hump of this is a sensitive subject to now I’m singing in a gym full of people.” She proved to herself that even after her stroke, she could still be in the spotlight, with a microphone in her hand, singing her favorite songs.