HANDWRITING AND SPEECH CHANGES ACROSS THE LEVODOPA CYCLE IN PARKINSONS-DISEASE

Levodopa treatment is used to reduce rigidity and bradykinesia in Park inson's disease (PD). This study tracked the handwriting and speech pe rformance of 10 PD patients at 30-minute intervals across one levodopa drug cycle to evaluate levodopa-related changes in temporal and spati al measures that are assumed to correspond to changes in rigidity and bradykinesia, The handwriting measures included l and e upstroke durat ion and size. The speech measures included duration of the Vowels /i/, /u/, /ae/, and /o/ and the quadrilateral area produced by these vowel s, and the slope of the diphthong /aI/. Levodopa significantly improve d handwriting upstroke duration but not upstroke size. Speech measures did not show a significant trend across the levodopa cycle. The resul ts suggest that upstroke duration is sensitive to the presumed effects of levodopa and that handwriting analysis may hold promise in helping to estimate an optimum levodopa regimen for PD patients. (C) 1998 Els evier Science B.V. All rights reserved. PsycINFO classification: 3297; 2330.