Speech rate in Parkinson's disease: A controlled study

Speech disturbances will affect most patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) over the course of the disease. The origin and severity of these symptoms are of clinical and diagnostic interest.

To evaluate the clinical pattern of speech impairment in PD patients and identify significant differences in speech rate and articulation compared to control subjects. Speech rate and articulation in a reading task were measured using an automatic analytical method.

A total of 39 PD patients in the 'on' state and 45 age-and sex-matched asymptomatic controls participated in the study. None of the patients experienced dyskinesias or motor fluctuations during the test.

The patients with PD displayed a significant reduction in speech and articulation rates; there were no significant correlations between the studied speech parameters and patient characteristics such as L-dopa dose, duration of the disorder, age, and UPDRS III scores and Hoehn & Yahr scales.

Patients with PD show a characteristic pattern of declining speech rate. These results suggest that in PD, disfluencies are the result of the movement disorder affecting the physiology of speech production systems.