Speech Impairment in a Large Sample of Patients with Parkinson’s Disease

Abstract

This study classified speech impairment in 200 patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) into five levels of overall severity and described the corresponding type (voice, articulation, fluency) and extent (rated on a five-point scale) of impairment for each level. From two-minute conversational speech samples, parameters of voice, fluency and articulation were assessed by two trained-raters. Voice was found to be the leading deficit, most frequently affected and impaired to a greater extent than other features in the initial stages. Articulatory and fluency deficits manifested later, articulatory impairment matching voice impairment in frequency and extent at the `Severe' stage. At the final stage of `Profound' impairment, articulation was the most frequently impaired feature at the lowest level of performance. This study illustrates the prominence of voice and articulatory speech motor control deficits, and draws parallels with deficits of motor set and motor set instability in skeletal controls of gait and handwriting.

Limb use and complex ultrasonic vocalization in a rat model of Parkinson's disease: Deficit-targeted training

“…Voice and speech deficits are common complications of PD [22][23][24][25][26] and include decreased vocal loudness, decreased frequency variability (monotone), breathiness, hoarse voice quality and imprecise articulation [22,23], as well as degradation in speech intelligibility [27]. Similar to animal models of therapy, targeted exercise (speech/voice therapy) has been shown to improve specific deficits, such as communication and quality of life in patients with PD [28][29][30].…”

Voice Parameter Analysis for the disease detection

“…These variations in voice patterns become worse as the disease progresses [35]. Research has shown that speech may be a useful signal for discriminating PWP from healthy individuals [37]. On the basis of clinical evidences which suggests that the vast majority of PWP typically exhibit some form of vocal disorder [38] and these vocal impairments are among the earlier PD symptoms preceding the actual Parkinson's disease., even five years prior to clinical diagnosis [39], we can reinforce the fact that voice may reflect disease status.…”

Aspectos comunicativos e enfrentamento da disfonia em pacientes com doença de Parkinson

“…Almost 90% of patients have problems related to oral communication (3) , but the voice is affected more quickly and more often than other subsystems (4) and can be the initial symptom. One-third of patients suffers from dysphonia and presents hoarseness and breathy voice as the most impacting deficit (5) .…”