The Lee Silverman Voice Treatment (LSVT®) speech therapy in progressive supranuclear palsy

The Lee Silverman Voice Treatment (LSVT®) was specifically created and tested to comply with the needs of individuals with Parkinson's disease (PD) and other neurological problems. This is a high effort intensive treatment that aims at increasing vocal intensity through the increase of subglottal air pressure, i.e. respiratory effort, for a better cordal adduction and vibration, following the motto "think loud".

The main goal of this study is to inspect the efficacy of LSVT® treatment in progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP) patients.

Longitudinal study.

Rehabilitative inpatient unit.

Sixteen patients with PSP and 23 patients with idiopathic PD as control were enrolled in the study.

All patients underwent a training consisting in16 sessions of speech therapy following the LSVT® protocol. Initially the two groups of patients had similar voice problems, i.e. low volume and bad articulation of speech.

A statistically significant improvement was found among the data collected before and after treatment in the PSP and Parkinson groups. Increase in maximum phonation duration and volume of voice in reading were similar in the two groups. Improvement in quality of voice and articulation were more significant in the PD group as compared to the PSP group.

These results, along with previous findings, add further support to the generalized therapeutic impact of intensive voice treatment on respiratory and laryngeal functions in individuals with PSP.

The positive results, the absence of dropout and collateral effect following this clinical treatments with LSVT technique encouraged to use this technique in PSP patients.