ACOUSTIC VOICE ANALYSIS IN PATIENTS WITH PARKINSONS-DISEASE TREATED WITH DOPAMINERGIC DRUGS

To quantify several acoustic features of the voice in patients with Pa rkinson's disease (PD), 41 patients and 28 age and sex-matched control s were studied. PD severity was assessed with the Unified PD Rating Sc ale (UPDRS) and the Hoehn and Yahr staging. The Computerized Speech La b 4300 program (Kay Elemetrics) was used. Tyro seconds of a sustained /a/ and a sentence were captured with a microphone and laryngograph eq uipment. Measures included fundamental frequency (F-0), frequency pert urbation (jitter), intensity perturbation (shimmer), and harmonic/nois e ratio (HM) of the vowel /a/, and frequency and intensity variability of a sentence, phonational range, dynamic range at the natural freque ncy, maximum phonational time and s/z ratio. All subjects underwent in direct laryngoscopy and/or laryngeal fibroscopy. When compared with co ntrols, PD patients showed higher jitter, lower H/N ratio, lower frequ ency and intensity variability of the sentence, and lower phonational range and reported a higher frequency of the presence of low voice-int ensity, monopitch, voice arrests, and struggle. These features seem to be unaffected by the duration and severity of the disease.