EFFECT OF SELEGILINE ON SPEECH PERFORMANCE IN PARKINSONS-DISEASE

Comprehensive speech examinations of 10 equally affected subjects with moderate, treated Parkinson's disease were performed before and 4 wee ks following initiation of treatment with selegiline (deprenyl), with other drug therapies unchanged. Forty different measures relating to t he speech processes of respiration, phonation, resonation, articulatio n and prosody were examined to measure changes in performance due to s elegiline. Significant improvements were noted for 8 of the 40 measure s, with these improvements relating to the speech processes of articul ation and respiration. The potential interactive effects of comedicati on are discussed. In addition, previously undescribed comprehensive sp eech characteristics of moderate Parkinson's disease are presented and discussed.