Speech intelligibility and clinical parameters in patients with Parkinson‘s disease

Czech version

Authors: Ľ. Mičianová ¹; A. Kušnírová ²; I. Straka ²; P. Valkovič ^2,3; Z. Cséfalvay ¹
Authors‘ workplace: Katedra logopédie, PdF UK Bratislava ¹; I. Neurologická klinika LF UK a UN Bratislava, Nemocnica akad. L. Dérera, Bratislava ²; Ústav normálnej a patologickej fyziológie, CEM SAV, Bratislava ³
Published in: Cesk Slov Neurol N 2018; 81(5): 586-592
Category: Original Paper
doi: https://doi.org/10.14735/amcsnn2018586

Overview

Introduction:
Parkinson‘s disease (PD) is very often accompanied by motor speech disorder – hypokinetic dysathria. This specific speech impairment is characterized by a variety of symptoms in phonation, articulation and resonance, but most strikingly is manifested by gradual worsening of intelligibility which greatly worsens the quality of life in these patients.

Aim:
In our research, we compared speech intelligibility of patients with PD with our newly developed test with matched healthy controls to reveal a relationship between the speech characteristics of PD patients and some neurological aspects of their disease.

Patients and methods:
51 patients with PD and 51 age-matched healthy subjects were included. To assess speech intelligibility, we used our experimental test battery designed for the Slovak language – Speech Intelligibility Test, Intelligibility Rating Scale for Motor Speech Disorders and procedures used in stimulation of narrative production. Clinical parameters included onset of illness, duration of disease, Hoehn and Yahr (H&Y) staging, and motor part of the Movement Disorder Society-Sponsored Revision of the Unified Parkinson’s Disease Rating Scale (MDS-UPDRS) part III.

Results:
There were statistically significant differences in word and phrase intelligibility level between PD patients and control group; however, both groups achieved mostly ceiling results. Healthy individuals produced significantly greater percentage of intelligible words also in spontaneous speech production than PD patients. There were no differences in the amount and type of dysfluencies between the groups studied. The results of speech tests were significantly correlated with more neurological parameters, from motoric symptoms with bradykinesia and axial subscore. Brief assessment of speech made by the neurologist was consistent with the results of a comprehensive speech evaluation.

Key words:
Parkinson‘s disease – speech – intelligibility – MDS-UPDRS III

The authors declare they have no potential conflicts of interest concerning drugs, products, or services used in the study.

The Editorial Board declares that the manuscript met the ICMJE “uniform requirements” for biomedical papers.

Chinese summary - 摘要

帕金森病患者的语言清晰度和临床参数

介绍：

帕金森病（PD）常伴有运动性言语障碍 - 运动功能减退性呼吸困难。这种特定的言语障碍以发声，发音和共鸣中的各种症状为特征，但最显著的是理解能力逐渐变差，这极大地降低了这些患者的生活质量。

目标：

在我们的研究中，我们用我们新开发的测试将PD患者的语音清晰度与匹配的健康对照进行比较，以揭示PD患者的言语特征与其疾病的一些神经学方面之间的关系。

患者和方法：

包括51名PD患者和51名年龄匹配的健康受试者。为了评估语音清晰度，我们使用了为斯洛伐克语设计的实验测试电池 - 语音清晰度测试，运动语音障碍的可理解程度评定量表和用于刺激叙事制作的程序。临床参数包括疾病发作，疾病持续时间，Hoehn和Yahr（H＆Y）分期，以及运动障碍学会 - 运动障碍协会修订统一帕金森病评定量表（MDS-UPDRS）第三部分的运动部分。

结果：

PD患者与对照组的单词和短语理解水平存在统计学差异; 然而，这两个群体都取得了大部分上限。与PD患者相比，健康个体在自发言语产生中产生显著更高百分比的可理解单词。研究组之间言语障碍的数量和类型没有差异。言语测试的结果与更多的神经学参数显著相关，从运动性症状与运动迟缓和轴向子分数。对神经病学家的言论进行简要评估与综合言语评估的结果一致。

关键词：

帕金森病 - 言语 - 可理解性 - MDS-UPDRS III

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