Dysarthria across Parkinson's disease progression. Natural history of its components: Dysphonia, dysprosody and dysarthria

Dysarthria refers to a collective name for a group of neurologic motor speech disorders, resulting from central and/or peripheral nervous system abnormalities Speech alteration in Parkinson's disease, so-called hypokinetic dysarthria, presents with prosodic insufficiency, related to a monotony of pitch and intensity, a reduction of accentuation, variable speech rate and possible phoneme imprecision In most cases, voice is harsh and breathy This symptom can affect both voice and speech quality, as well as prosody and intelligibility As a consequence, many patients complain about speech impairments, which affect their communication in daily living activities Perceptual and instrumental assessments require different and numerous investigation methods, which use may help to further understand the specific dysarthria pathophysiology. This is of importance in order to adjust treatments for dysarthria, as a matter of fact, dopatherapy, functional neurosurgery or even behavioural speech therapy have variable effects on voice and speech quality in Parkinson's disease (C) 2010 Elsevier Masson SAS All rights reserved