Motor speech disorders and dysphagia in neurodegenerative diseases: clinical profiles compared

Diletta Sciancalepore; Valentina Lavermicocca; Teresanna Illuzzi; Simone Dipace; Maria Luisa Fiorella

doi:10.17469/O2111AISV000004

Authors

Diletta Sciancalepore Department of translational biomedicine and neuroscience, University of Bari “Aldo Moro”, Bari, Italy https://orcid.org/0009-0004-9948-2923
Valentina Lavermicocca Department of translational biomedicine and neuroscience, University of Bari “Aldo Moro”, Bari, Italy https://orcid.org/0009-0002-7426-9670
Teresanna Illuzzi University of Bari “Aldo Moro”, Bari, Italy https://orcid.org/0009-0006-8105-4175
Simone Dipace University of Bari “Aldo Moro”, Bari, Italy https://orcid.org/0009-0002-8434-5251
Maria Luisa Fiorella Department of translational biomedicine and neuroscience, University of Bari “Aldo Moro”, Bari, Italy https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9199-4132

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.17469/O2111AISV000004

Keywords:

dysarthria, dysphagia, neurodegenerative disease, speech production

Abstract

The aim of this study is to detect the alterations in the acoustic parameters of speech and swallowing difficulties in neurodegenerative diseases. 14 patients affected by Parkinson's Disease, 5 patients affected by Atypical Parkinsonism and 8 patients affected by Multiple Sclerosis were enrolled and underwent clinical and instrumental evaluation of speech and swallowing. The data obtained have been compared to those of a control group of 15 healthy people. The articulatory abilities have been assessed through maximum phonation time (MPT) and triangular voice space area (tVSA). Significant differences have been found between clinical and control group in MPT and tVSA. Regarding the swallowing assessment, parkinsonian syndromes showed worse results than Multiple Sclerosis in terms of bolus stagnation. In the patients group, speech and swallowing disorders are not similar in terms of neither severity nor onset. Noticeably, in our corpus dysphagia never represents the only disorder, as patients with dysphagia also show speech impairment.