Department of Neurology, Knappschaftskrankenhaus, Ruhr-University of Bochum, In der Schornau 23-25, 44892 Bochum, Germany.
J Voice. 2011 Jul;25(4):467-72. doi: 10.1016/j.jvoice.2010.01.009. Epub 2010 May 1.
The aim of the study was to analyze vowel articulation in Parkinson's disease (PD) speakers suffering from mild hypokinetic dysarthria as compared with healthy controls in correlation to net speech rate (NSR) and intonation variability (F(0)SD). Furthermore, we intended to reveal possible correlations among vowel articulation, global motor performance, and stage of disease.
We examined 68 PD patients (34 male) with mild dysarthria (1 point according to the "speech" item 18 of the Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale/UPDRS-III) and 32 age-matched control persons (16 male) using a reading task with subsequent acoustical analysis. F1 and F2 frequency values of the vowels /a/, /i/, and /u/ were extracted from defined words within the text. Description of vowel articulation was based on measures of triangular vowel space area (tVSA) and Vowel Articulation Index (VAI). PD patients were scored according to UPDRS-III and Hoehn and Yahr stages.
VAI values were significantly reduced in male and female PD patients as compared with the accordant control group, whereas tVSA was only reduced in the male PD speakers. NSR was negatively correlated to tVSA and VAI only in female PD speakers. No correlations were seen between vowel articulation and UPDRS-III and stage of disease.
VAI seem to be superior to tVSA in the description of impaired vowel articulation in PD. Reduced VAI could be detected in male and female parkinsonian speakers suffering only from mild dysarthria with preserved speech intelligibility and therefore might be applicable to identify subclinical changes of vowel articulation. Moreover, some aspects of altered speech performance in PD seem to feature some gender-specific patterns, which justify further investigation.
本研究旨在分析轻度运动迟缓性构音障碍的帕金森病（PD）患者的元音发音，将其与健康对照组进行比较，并与净言语率（NSR）和语调变异性（F（0）SD）相关联。此外，我们还旨在揭示元音发音、整体运动表现和疾病阶段之间的可能相关性。
我们检查了 68 名患有轻度构音障碍（根据“言语”项 18，统一帕金森病评定量表/UPDRS-III 得分为 1 分）的 PD 患者（34 名男性）和 32 名年龄匹配的对照组（16 名男性），使用阅读任务和随后的声学分析。从文本中的定义词中提取元音/a/、/i/和/u/的 F1 和 F2 频率值。元音发音的描述基于三角形元音空间面积（tVSA）和元音发音指数（VAI）的测量。PD 患者根据 UPDRS-III 和 Hoehn 和 Yahr 分期进行评分。
与相应的对照组相比，男性和女性 PD 患者的 VAI 值显著降低，而 tVSA 仅在男性 PD 患者中降低。仅在女性 PD 患者中，NSR 与 tVSA 和 VAI 呈负相关。在元音发音和 UPDRS-III 与疾病阶段之间没有观察到相关性。
在描述 PD 中的元音发音障碍方面，VAI 似乎优于 tVSA。仅患有轻度构音障碍且言语可懂度保留的男性和女性帕金森病患者中可检测到降低的 VAI，因此可能适用于识别元音发音的亚临床变化。此外，PD 中某些言语表现的改变似乎具有某些性别特异性模式，这需要进一步研究。
