Frequency and Cooccurrence of Vocal Tract Dysfunctions in the Speech of a Large Sample of Parkinson Patients

Abstract

In this study, the frequency of occurrence of speech and voice symptoms in 200 Parkinson patients was defined by two expert listeners from high-fidelity tape recordings of conversational speech samples and readings of the sentence version of the Fisher-Logemann Test of Articulation Competence. Specific phonemes that were misarticulated were catalogued. Other vocal-tract dysfunctions, including laryngeal disorders, rate disorders, and hypernasality, were also recorded. Cooccurrence of symptoms in each patient was tabulated. Examination of the patterns of cooccurring dysfunctions permitted classifying the 200 patients into five groups: Group 1 (45% of the patients) with laryngeal dysfunction as their only vocal-tract symptom; Group 2 (13.5% of the patients) with laryngeal and back-tongue involvement; Group 3 (17% of the patients) with laryngeal, back-tongue, and tongue-blade dysfunction; Group 4 (5.5% of the patients) with laryngeal dysfunction, back-tongue involvement, tongue-blade dysfunction, and labial misarticulations; and Group 5 (9% of the patients) with laryngeal dysfunction and misarticulations of the back tongue, tongue blade, lips, and tongue tip. Disfluencies and hypernasality did not follow a systematic pattern of cooccurrence with other vocal-tract dysfunctions.

Adaptação para a língua Portuguesa e aplicação de protocolo de avaliação das disartrias de origem central em pacientes com Doença de Parkinson

“…Adjustment to the Portuguese and application to patients with Parkinson's disease of protocol within central origin dysarthrias' assessment Angélica Suelen Fracassi (1) , Ana Rita Gatto (2) , Silke Weber (3) , André Augusto Spadotto (4) , Priscila Watson Ribeiro (5) , Arthur Oscar Schelp (6) RESUMO Objetivo: traduzir e adaptar protocolo desenvolvido por pesquisadores alemães, adequando-o às características fonéticas e linguísticas do português falado no Brasil. Caracterizar os componentes de fala mais alterados na população com doença de Parkinson, comparando-os com grupo de sujeitos normais na mesma faixa etária.…”

Central nervous system control of the laryngeal muscles in humans

“…The recent tracing studies in monkey Jurgens, 2003, 2005) have demonstrated dense reciprocal connections between the laryngeal motor cortex and the putamen and thalamus, yet subcortical control systems and their modulation of cortical and the brain stem centers are virtually unexplored. Significant voice and swallowing deficits seen in Parkinson disease suggest that other regions besides the cortex and medulla are critical to normal laryngeal control for speech and swallowing (Logemann et al, 1977;Robbins et al, 1986). Improved knowledge of the basal ganglia control of the laryngeal musculature might allow for exploration of various neurotransmitter systems to improve laryngeal function in cough, swallow, voice, speech and respiration.…”

Relative fundamental frequency during vocal onset and offset in older speakers with and without Parkinson's disease

“…Speech symptoms are prevalent in Parkinson's disease (PD; Logemann et al, 1978), with voice changes being the earliest and most common (Holmes et al, 2000). These symptoms cause significant decreases in patient quality of life, often well before obvious changes in speech intelligibility (Miller et al, 2006).…”