Dysarthria

About: Dysarthria is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 2402 publications have been published within this topic receiving 56554 citations.

EchoWear: smartwatch technology for voice and speech treatments of patients with Parkinson's disease

Abstract: About 90 percent of people with Parkinson's disease (PD) experience decreased functional communication due to the presence of voice and speech disorders associated with dysarthria that can be characterized by monotony of pitch (or fundamental frequency), reduced loudness, irregular rate of speech, imprecise consonants, and changes in voice quality. Speech-language pathologists (SLPs) work with patients with PD to improve speech intelligibility using various intensive in-clinic speech treatments. SLPs also prescribe home exercises to enhance generalization of speech strategies outside of the treatment room. Even though speech therapies are found to be highly effective in improving vocal loudness and speech quality, patients with PD find it difficult to follow the prescribed exercise regimes outside the clinic and to continue exercises once the treatment is completed. SLPs need techniques to monitor compliance and accuracy of their patients' exercises at home and in ecologically valid communication situations. We have designed EchoWear, a smartwatch-based system, to remotely monitor speech and voice exercises as prescribed by SLPs. We conducted a study of 6 individuals; three with PD and three healthy controls. To assess the performance of EchoWear technology compared with high-quality audio equipment obtained in a speech laboratory. Our preliminary analysis shows promising outcomes for using EchoWear in speech therapies for people with PD.

Speech disorders in Parkinson's disease: pathophysiology, medical management and surgical approaches.

Abstract: The prevalence of speech disorders among individuals with Parkinson's disease (PD) has been reported to be as high as 89% Speech impairment in PD results from a combination of motor and nonmotor deficits The production of speech depends upon the coordination of various motor activities: respiration, phonation, articulation, resonance and prosody A speech disorder is defined as impairment in any of its inter-related components Despite the high prevalence of speech disorders in PD, only 3-4% receive speech treatment Treatment modalities include pharmacological intervention, speech therapy, surgery, deep brain stimulation and vocal fold augmentation Although management of Parkinsonian dysarthria is clinically challenging, speech treatment in PD should be part of a multidisciplinary approach to patient care in this disease

Vowel Acoustics in Dysarthria: Mapping to Perception

Abstract: Purpose The aim of the present report was to explore whether vowel metrics, demonstrated to distinguish dysarthric and healthy speech in a companion article (Lansford & Liss, 2014), are able to pre...

Small intragenic deletion in FOXP2 associated with childhood apraxia of speech and dysarthria.

Abstract: Relatively little is known about the neurobiological basis of speech disorders although genetic determinants are increasingly recognized. The first gene for primary speech disorder was FOXP2, identified in a large, informative family with verbal and oral dyspraxia. Subsequently, many de novo and familial cases with a severe speech disorder associated with FOXP2 mutations have been reported. These mutations include sequencing alterations, translocations, uniparental disomy, and genomic copy number variants. We studied eight probands with speech disorder and their families. Family members were phenotyped using a comprehensive assessment of speech, oral motor function, language, literacy skills, and cognition. Coding regions of FOXP2 were screened to identify novel variants. Segregation of the variant was determined in the probands' families. Variants were identified in two probands. One child with severe motor speech disorder had a small de novo intragenic FOXP2 deletion. His phenotype included features of childhood apraxia of speech and dysarthria, oral motor dyspraxia, receptive and expressive language disorder, and literacy difficulties. The other variant was found in a family in two of three family members with stuttering, and also in the mother with oral motor impairment. This variant was considered a benign polymorphism as it was predicted to be non-pathogenic with in silico tools and found in database controls. This is the first report of a small intragenic deletion of FOXP2 that is likely to be the cause of severe motor speech disorder associated with language and literacy problems.

Acquired capsular/striatal aphasia in childhood.

Abstract: • We studied a case of language loss caused by an acquired vascular lesion in the putamen, anterior limb of the internal capsule, and lateral aspect of the head of the caudate nucleus in a 7-year-old right-handed girl. Acute right-sided hemiplegia, mutism, oral apraxia, and disturbance in language comprehension but no dysarthria were present. During recovery, a nonfluent aphasia with anomia was evident. After six months, only mild hemiparesis and minor spelling difficulties persisted. We compared this patient with an 11-year-old right-handed girl with rightsided hemiparesis and dysarthria but no language loss following a lesion in the globus pallidus, a portion of the posterior limb of the internal capsule, and the body of the caudate. The presence of a language disturbance in the first but not the second patient was attributed to the difference in lesion location. The symptoms and lesions were similar to those in recent reports of adult patients. To our knowledge, this is the first report of these findings in a child with a left-hemisphere lesion.