Prevalence and characteristics of dysarthria in a multiple-sclerosis incidence cohort: Relation to neurological data

Few attempts have been made to use degree and type of multiple sclerosis (M S) dysarthria in neurological evaluation. In the present study, 77 individu als drawn from an MS population were examined both by a speech pathologist and a neurologist, and data from three sources of information were subseque ntly combined: (1) a clinical dysarthria test procedure, (2) a perceptual a nalysis of speech characteristics in continuous speech, and (3) neurologica l deficit scoring, The speech of 15 age- and gender-matched healthy control subjects was also investigated. It was concluded that: (I)the prevalence o f mild to severe dysarthria in this cohort was 51% and occurred in all comp onents of speech production: respiration, phonation, prosody, articulation and nasality. (2) The clinical dysarthria test was sensitive in detecting s ubclinical speech signs. The prevalence of pathologic speech signs found on the basis of the test was found to be 62%. The prevalence of dysarthria ba sed on the neurological evaluation alone was 20%. (3) The dysarthria of MS was a predominantly mixed dysarthria, with both ataxic and spastic speech s igns frequently present in the speech of a given individual. (4) Furthermor e, when a predominant type of dysarthria existed, it was not generally asso ciated with a characteristic profile of neurological deficits. Rather, seve rity of speech deviation was positively correlated to overall severity of n eurological involvement, type of disease course, and number of years in pro gression. Copyright (C) 2000 S. Karger AG. Basel.