Perceptive and subjective evaluation of speech disorders in Parkinsons disease

Abstract

Parkinsons disease (PD), which is not only a motor disease, is one of the most frequent neurodegenerative diseases and affects 1.5-2% of people worldwide. The role of its non motor-symptoms is of first importance on quality of life. Speech impairment is considered a part of motor impairment and is widespread in PD where most frequent speech impairment is Hypokinetic dysarthria, a disorder characterized by reduced articulation movements and phonetic monotony. Many PD patients show difficulty in accessing the lexicon related to cognitive impairment. Clinical evaluation of speech disorders in PD includes the clinical history, verbal and non-verbal assessment of the voice, evaluation of the calibre of the language. It is also important to self-assess speech disturbances because PD patients often do not realize their own deficits. Self-assessment tests comprise subjective assessment of communicative disorder in different social situations, description of adopted strategies, perception of the reactions of interlocutors. The comparison between perceptive and subjective examination of speech disorders in PD patients are described in order to evaluate the presence of these deficits and their impact on quality of life in order to initiate early treatment with specific speech therapy.