Effect of concurrent walking and interlocutor distance on conversational speech intensity and rate in Parkinson's disease

Abstract

This study examined the effects of concurrent walking tasks and interlocutor distance on conversational speech production in fifteen individuals with idiopathic Parkinson's disease (PD) and fourteen age-equivalent controls. Recent studies of speech in PD have demonstrated that changes in the behavioural conditions and the environmental context can have a powerful effect on the severity of speech symptoms in PD. This investigation focused on changes in speech intensity and speech rate in response to changes in walking speed and interlocutor distance. Results suggest that the introduction of a concurrent walking task significantly increased the conversational speech intensity of both controls and individuals with PD. When compared to sitting and talking or standing and talking, current walking and talking appeared to have an energizing effect on conversational speech intensity. In addition, walking faster was associated with a significant increase in conversational speech intensity relative to normal and slow walking speeds. These results provide important new information about the effect of concurrent walking on speech motor performance and speech symptom severity in PD. The potential energizing effect of concurrent walking conditions on conversational speech intensity may be an important consideration in the assessment and treatment of individuals with low speech intensity in PD.

Factors explaining physical activity level in Parkinson´s disease: A gender focus

“…Another possible explanation for our result could be that physical activity facilitated speech, leading to persons with communication limitations wanting to be more physically active. This is supported by the study by McCaig, Adams, Dykstra, and Jog (2016) in which it was shown that concurrent walking increased the speech intensity in persons with PD. Clinical implications of this fact is that persons with PD should get information about the positive effects of physical activity on speech and a combination of speech-and physical activity training can be advantageously.…”

Quantitative Analysis of Relationship Between Hypokinetic Dysarthria and the Freezing of Gait in Parkinson’s Disease

“…In 2016, McCaig et al ([ 45 ]) analysed the effect of concurrent walking on speech production in 15 PD patients with hypophonia. More specifically, they analysed the effect of sitting, standing and three concurrent walking tasks on speech intensity and speech rate.…”

Cognitive Determinants of Dysarthria in Parkinson's Disease: An Automated Machine Learning Approach

“…Dysarthric manifestations occur in most patients with PD 5,6 . Deficits are common in the domain of prosody (pitch and rhythm variations), including monopitch, monoloudness, and abnormal pausing 33‐37 . Such alterations reflect disruptions of the fundamental frequency (F 0 ) of vocal‐fold vibration and speech latencies (eg, atypical pause length) 36,38 .…”

“…5,6 Deficits are common in the domain of prosody (pitch and rhythm variations), including monopitch, monoloudness, and abnormal pausing. [33][34][35][36][37] Such alterations reflect disruptions of the fundamental frequency (F 0 ) of vocal-fold vibration and speech latencies (eg, atypical pause length). 36,38 Also, patients exhibit poor articulation (speech organ movements for sound production).…”