Role of Therapeutic Devices in Enhancing Speech Intelligibility and Vocal Intensity in an Individual with Parkinson’s Disease

<p>The prevailing speech therapy techniques for treating hypokinetic dysarthria in individuals with Parkinson's disease (PD) yields improvements within the clinical setting, however, maintenance and generalization of acquired behaviors continue to be a challenge. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of portable therapeutic devices including Ambulatory Phonation Monitor with biofeedback (APM) and auditory masker in maintenance and carryover of improved speech. Our participant was an individual diagnosed with PD for the past 25 years who continued to display speech disturbances despite undergoing several behavioral speech therapy programs and neurosurgical procedures. Speech intelligibility and average intensity measures under automatic, elicited, and spontaneous speech tasks were recorded pre- and postusage of APM and auditory masker for a period of 1 week each. Preliminary findings showed no significant difference in the measures between means (P&#62;0.05) across all tasks for both the devices. Suggestions for future research on therapeutic devices are discussed.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

MS (Master of Science)

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis - unrestricted

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Communicative Disorders

Year dc:date.issued

2012

Author dc:creator

• Swaminathan, Swetha

• Speech Intelligibility
• Average
• Parkinson’s Disease
• Behavioral Speech Therapy
• Communication Sciences and Disorders
• Medicine and Health Sciences
• Speech Pathology and Audiology

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright by the authors.

Repository record dc:identifier

https://dc.etsu.edu/etd/1475

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dc.etsu.edu:etd-2668