[Acoustic analysis for 21 patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis complaining of dysarthria]

To observe the characteristics of acoustic parameters of 21 patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) complaining of dysarthria and to explore the possibility and clinical value of Multi-Dimensional Voice Program (MDVP) on aseessing the patient's voice.

The clinical data and speech intelligibility of each of the 21 patients with ALS complaining of dysarthria were collected. All the 21 patients with ALS and 44 normal subjects were suggested to pronounce the vowel [a:]. The voice samples were collected and analyzed by Multi Dimensional Voice Program. The data were compared to detect the difference between the two groups.

Speech intelligibility of 10 in the 21 patients was above 97% including 5 patients whose scores were 100%. It seemed that the speech intelligibility score was not related with the duration of the disease and the on-set part. The values of noise to harmonic ratio (NHR) of both the light and the severe damage to the speech group were higher than those of the control group with significant difference (P<0.05).Significant difference was noticed between the severe damage to the speech group and control group in Jitter.

Multi Dimensional Voice Program could be used to analyze the characteristics of acoustic parameters of patients with ALS patients complaining of dysarthria. There was more noise composition in the voice of the patients with dysarthria. NHR seemed to be the sensitive and stable parameter. Especially in patients whose speech intelligibility were affected severely, more acoustic parameters were detected with significant difference.