The purpose of this study was to analyze vowel articulation across various speaking tasks in a group of 20 early Parkinson's disease (PD) individuals prior to pharmacotherapy. Vowels were extracted from sustained phonation, sentence repetition, reading passage, and monologue. Acoustic analysis was based upon measures of the first (F1) and second (F2) formant of the vowels /a/, /i/, and /u/, vowel space area (VSA), F2i/F2u and vowel articulation index (VAI). Parkinsonian speakers manifested abnormalities in vowel articulation across F2u, VSA, F2i/F2u, and VAI in all speaking tasks except sustained phonation, compared to 15 age-matched healthy control participants. Findings suggest that sustained phonation is an inappropriate task to investigate vowel articulation in early PD. In contrast, monologue was the most sensitive in differentiating between controls and PD patients, with classification accuracy up to 80%. Measurements of vowel articulation were able to capture even minor abnormalities in speech of PD patients with no perceptible dysarthria. In conclusion, impaired vowel articulation may be considered as a possible early marker of PD. A certain type of speaking task can exert significant influence on vowel articulation. Specifically, complex tasks such as monologue are more likely to elicit articulatory deficits in parkinsonian speech, compared to other speaking tasks.
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September 2013
September 01 2013
Imprecise vowel articulation as a potential early marker of Parkinson's disease: Effect of speaking task
Jan Rusz;
Jan Rusz
a)
Czech Technical University in Prague, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Department of Circuit Theory
, Technicka 2, 166 27, Prague 6, Czech Republic
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Roman Cmejla;
Roman Cmejla
Czech Technical University in Prague, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Department of Circuit Theory
, Technicka 2, 166 27, Prague 6, Czech Republic
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Tereza Tykalova;
Tereza Tykalova
Czech Technical University in Prague, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Department of Circuit Theory
, Technicka 2, 166 27, Prague 6, Czech Republic
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Hana Ruzickova;
Hana Ruzickova
Charles University in Prague, First Faculty of Medicine, Department of Neurology and Centre of Clinical Neuroscience
, Katerinska 30, 120 00, Prague 2, Czech Republic
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Jiri Klempir;
Jiri Klempir
Charles University in Prague, First Faculty of Medicine, Department of Neurology and Centre of Clinical Neuroscience
, Katerinska 30, 120 00, Prague 2, Czech Republic
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Veronika Majerova;
Veronika Majerova
Charles University in Prague, First Faculty of Medicine, Department of Neurology and Centre of Clinical Neuroscience
, Katerinska 30, 120 00, Prague 2, Czech Republic
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Jana Picmausova;
Jana Picmausova
Charles University in Prague, First Faculty of Medicine, Department of Neurology and Centre of Clinical Neuroscience
, Katerinska 30, 120 00, Prague 2, Czech Republic
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Jan Roth;
Jan Roth
Charles University in Prague, First Faculty of Medicine, Department of Neurology and Centre of Clinical Neuroscience
, Katerinska 30, 120 00, Prague 2, Czech Republic
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Evzen Ruzicka
Evzen Ruzicka
Charles University in Prague, First Faculty of Medicine, Department of Neurology and Centre of Clinical Neuroscience
, Katerinska 30, 120 00, Prague 2, Czech Republic
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a)
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed. Electronic mail: ruszjan@fel.cvut.cz
J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 134, 2171–2181 (2013)
Article history
Received:
October 16 2012
Accepted:
July 08 2013
Citation
Jan Rusz, Roman Cmejla, Tereza Tykalova, Hana Ruzickova, Jiri Klempir, Veronika Majerova, Jana Picmausova, Jan Roth, Evzen Ruzicka; Imprecise vowel articulation as a potential early marker of Parkinson's disease: Effect of speaking task. J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 1 September 2013; 134 (3): 2171–2181. https://doi.org/10.1121/1.4816541
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