[The application of Lee Silverman voice treatment in Parkinson's disease]

Parkinson's disease is a combined motor and nonmotor disorder, including reduced vocal loudness, monotone, slurred speech. The only standardized, evidence-based speech therapy that currently available for people with Parkinson's disease is Lee Silverman Voice Treatment (LSVT).We aimed to present the first results of using LSVT in our country through six case studies.

Six patients with Parkinson's disease were treated at the Neurorehabilitation Department of Department of Neurology, University of Szeged. The average age of patients was 68 years. The patients' antiparkinsonian medication was not changed during the treatment. Patients received speech therapy 16 times, four times a week for 60 minutes for 4 weeks. Data were collected before and after therapy, following the LSVT Loud examining protocol that involved dictaphone recordings about sustained vowel phonation, pitch changes, reading and conversation. The voice recordings were analysed using Praat software, we annotated the sustained vowel phonations, and the pause-to pause speech segments in the reading and conversation tasks.

Our results show that the quality of speech and the sound pressure level improved in all patients with the LSVT Loud technique.

The prevalence of Parkinson's disease and the changes in speech and voice quality demonstrate the need for expanding the therapeutic options available to manage Parkinson's speech symptoms. In addition to conventional dysarthria therapy, it is recommended to introduce Lee Silverman Voice Treatment (LSVT) into clinical practice, which can significantly improve patients' communication abilities and quality of life. Based on the results, we can say that LSVT can be successfully applied in our country.