Acoustic and hearing-perceptual voice analysis in individuals with idiopathic Parkinson's disease in "on" and "off" stages

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the voice quality of patients with idiopathic Parkinson's disease, at the "on" and "off" moments of the disease. METHOD: Five individuals with Parkinson's disease and five of the control group were assessed. All of them underwent the recording of...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Santos,Luiza Lara M (author)
Other Authors: Reis,Larissa Oliveira dos (author), Bassi,Iara (author), Guzella,Clara (author), Cardoso,Francisco (author), Reis,César (author), Gama,Ana Cristina Côrtes (author)
Format: article
Language:eng
Published: 2010
Subjects:
Online Access:http://old.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0004-282X2010000500006
Country:Brazil
Oai:oai:scielo:S0004-282X2010000500006
Description
Summary:OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the voice quality of patients with idiopathic Parkinson's disease, at the "on" and "off" moments of the disease. METHOD: Five individuals with Parkinson's disease and five of the control group were assessed. All of them underwent the recording of voice and speech. The acoustic parameters analyzed were: fundamental frequency, jitter, shimmer, harmonic noise proportion and index of tremor, besides performing the hearing-perceptual analysis by means of GRBASI scale. The findings were analyzed using statistics through t test and the level of significance adopted was p<0.05. RESULTS: There was no difference in the acoustic parameters in the three analyzed groups. In the hearing-perceptual analysis, patients with idiopathic Parkinson's disease showed altered voice quality and the ones from the control group, neutral vocal quality. CONCLUSION: Patients with idiopathic Parkinson's disease present rough, breathy and unstable vocal quality in both stages. In the acoustic analysis, there are no differences in the studied parameters.