Objective vowel sound characteristics and their relationship with motor dysfunction in Asian Parkinson's disease patients.
J Neurol Sci 2021;
426:117487. [PMID:
34004464 DOI:
10.1016/j.jns.2021.117487]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/11/2020] [Revised: 05/05/2021] [Accepted: 05/10/2021] [Indexed: 11/23/2022]
Abstract
BACKGROUND
Speech impairments are very common in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD). However, knowledge of their objective characteristics and relationship to other motor symptoms amongst Asian PD patients is limited.
OBJECTIVES
To identify objective vowel sound characteristics in Thai PD patients and correlate with disease severity, as determined by UPDRS and various sub-scores.
METHOD
We evaluated 100 Thai PD patients, with a mean age of 66.56 years (±7.52) and HY of 2.7 (±1.08), and 101 age-matched controls. Phonatory evaluation, comprising of 15 objective parameters, was conducted using the Multi-Dimensional Voice Programme with a sustained /a/ phonation.
RESULTS
PD patients exhibited significantly higher values of all dimensions of the phonatory parameters evaluated compared to controls (All, p < 0.001) except for duration of sustained phonation, which was significantly shorter in PD patients. When early- and advanced-stage patients were compared, significantly different parameters were limited to frequency perturbation parameters (Jitt, p = 0.01; RAP, p = 0.013; PPQ, p = 0.01; sPPQ, p = 0.001; vF0, p = 0.011), and NHR (p = 0.028). Several significant and moderate correlations were observed between both STD and frequency perturbation parameters and UPDRS-III, bradykinesia sub-score, and gait and postural instability sub-score. Both vF0, and STD significantly correlated with UPDRS-III and sub-scores in advanced stage patients.
CONCLUSION
Our study provides objective evidence of phonatory dysfunction in Asian PD patients with certain characteristics correlated with advanced stage or different motor dysfunction. Sustained vowel phonation is a promising digital outcome for global phenotyping a large number of PD patients.
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