Dysarthria is universal in Parkinson's disease (PD) during disease progression; however, the quality of vocalization changes is often ignored. Furthermore, the role of changes in the acoustic parameters of phonation in PD patients remains unclear. We recruited 35 PD patients and 26 healthy controls to perform single, double, and multiple syllable tests. A logistic regression was performed to differentiate between protective and risk factors among the acoustic parameters. The results indicated that the mean f0, max f0, min f0, jitter, duration of speech and median intensity of speaking for the PD patients were significantly different from those of the healthy controls. These results reveal some promising indicators of dysarthric symptoms consisting of acoustic parameters, and they strengthen our understanding about the significance of changes in phonation by PD patients, which may accelerate the discovery of novel PD biomarkers. Abbreviations PD Parkinson's disease HKD Hypokinetic dysarthria VHI-30 Voice Handicap Index H&Y Hoehn-Yahr scale UPDRS III Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale Motor Score Parkinson's disease (PD), a chronic, progressive neurodegenerative disorder with an unknown etiology, is associated with a significant burden with regards to cost and use of societal resources 1,2. More than 90% of patients with PD suffer from hypokinetic dysarthria 3. Early in 1969, Darley et al. defined dysarthria as a collective term for related speech disorders. The classification of dysarthria includes flaccid dysarthria, spastic dysarthria, ataxic dysarthria, hypokinetic dysarthria, hyperkinetic dysarthria, unilateral upper motor neuron dysarthria and mixed dysarthria 4. The speech abnormalities of patients with PD are collectively termed hypokinetic dysarthria (HKD). These speech flaws are typically characterized by increased acoustic noise, a reduced intensity of voice, harsh and breathy voice quality, increased voice nasality, monopitch, monoloudness, speech rate disturbances, the imprecise articulation of consonants, the involuntary introduction of pauses, the rapid repetitions of words and syllables and sudden deceleration or acceleration in speech. Speech impairments are caused by impaired speech mechanisms during any of the basic motor processes involved in speech performance 5. The neuromotor speech sequence activates the muscles of the pharynx, tongue, larynx, chest and diaphragm through subthalamic secondary pathways. The anatomical substrate that could result in the abnormalities of PD phonetics may be reduced by the poor coordination of the sound-making muscles 6 .
Introduction: Parkinson's (PD) is a common degenerative disease of the central nervous system. It affects more than 6 million individuals worldwide. The typical clinical manifestations include static tremor, slow movement, and unstable posture. However, the correlation between head tremor and the severity of PD remains unclear. Methods:In the current study, 18 patients and 18 healthy subjects were recruited to undergo a phonation test. Noldus facereader 7.0 software was used to analyze the range of head trembling between the two groups. Results:The data revealed that patients with PD had significant differences in the x-, y-, and z-axis of head movement with respect to the specific pronunciation syllables compared with the normal group. Moreover, the head movement of the patients with PD was positively correlated with the severity of the disease in the single, double, and multiple syllable tests. In the phonetic test, the head displacement of patients with PD was significantly greater than that of healthy individuals, and the displacement range was positively correlated with the severity of the disease. Conclusion:These pieces of evidence suggested that the measurement of head displacement assists the early diagnosis and severity of the disease.
Iron deficiency anemia (IDA) is one of the most common nutritional problems that encountered all over the world. This study focused on the effects of chickpea seeds ferritin (CSF) as aniron supplement on IDA in rats. Six groups of female Wistar rats (n = 8) were used, which contain (1) control group; (2) IDA model group; (3) FeSO 4 positive control group (dosages of iron is 3 mg/(kg•d)); (4) CSF high-dose group (dosage of iron is 3 mg/(kg•d); (5) CSF medium-dose group (dosage of iron is 1.5 mg/(kg•d)); and (6) CSF low-dose group (dosage of iron is 0.75 mg/(kg•d)). After 2 weeks, the hemoglobin (Hb) concentration value, serum iron (SI) stores, body weights, blood parameters and tissue weights of anemic rats were measured, respectively. It showed that the Hb concentration value and SI stores were significantly increased in the iron supplement groups (CSF, FeSO 4) compared with the IDA model group (P< 0.05). Additionally, the changes of red blood cell (RBC) number and HCT (Hematocrit) level in CSF groups were significantly greater than the IDA model group at the end of the experiment. All in all, compared with FeSO 4 group, a higher bioavailability of iron and fewer side effects were observed in the CSF groups. Thus, the present study indicated that CSF was an effective source of iron supplement for the IDA model rats and could be developed as a functional product to overcome the malnutrition-related iron deficiency.
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