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Voice features of Parkinson’s disease patients with subthalamic nucleus deep brain stimulation

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Abstract

Voice and speech disorders are one of the most important issues after subthalamic nucleus deep brain stimulation (STN-DBS) in Parkinson’s disease patients; however, their characteristics remain unclear. We performed a comprehensive voice evaluation including the multi-dimensional voice program for acoustic analysis, the GRBAS scale for perceptual analysis, and the evaluation of the voice handicap index (VHI) for psychosocial analysis. In total, 68 patients who had undergone STN-DBS (37 assessed in the on- and off-stimulation conditions) and 40 who had been treated with medical therapy alone were evaluated. Further, we performed laryngoscopic examinations in 13 STN-DBS and 19 medical-therapy-alone patients. The STN-DBS group, especially females, showed widespread impairment of voice parameters and significantly poorer VHI scores than the medical-therapy-alone group. The degree of voiceless (DUV) and strained voice were the most impaired factors in the STN-DBS group; and DUV significantly improved after stopping stimulation. Furthermore strained voice, breathiness, and asthenia improved after stopping stimulation. Laryngoscopic examination showed that abnormal laryngeal muscle contraction and incomplete glottal closure were more prominent in the STN-DBS group than in the medical-therapy-alone group. We demonstrated that (1) more widespread voice impairment in females, (2) poorer voice-related QOL, (3) worse DUV and strained voice, and (4) abnormal laryngeal muscle contraction were the characteristic voice and laryngeal findings in the STN-DBS group compared with those in the medical-therapy-alone group.

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Abbreviations

F 0 :

Average fundamental frequency

Jitt:

Jitter percent

Shim:

Shimmer percent

NHR:

Noise-to-harmonic Ratio

FTRI:

F 0-tremor intensity index

ATRI:

Amplitude tremor intensity index

DSH:

Degree of subharmonic segments

DUV:

Degree of voiceless

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The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Neurology, Nagoya University, 65, Tsurumai, Showa-ku, Nagoya, Aichi, 466-8560, Japan

    Yasuhiro Tanaka, Takashi Tsuboi, Hirohisa Watanabe, Reiko Ohdake, Noritaka Yoneyama, Michihito Masuda, Kazuhiro Hara, Joe Senda, Mizuki Ito, Naoki Atsuta & Gen Sobue

  2. Department of Neurosurgery, Nagoya University, Nagoya, Japan

    Yasukazu Kajita & Toshihiko Wakabayashi

  3. Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Nagoya University, Nagoya, Japan

    Yasushi Fujimoto

  4. Department of Rehabilitation, School of Allied Health Sciences, Kitasato University, 1-15-1, Kitasato, Minami-ku, Sagamihara, Kanagawa, Japan

    Satoshi Horiguchi

  5. Department of Health Science, Aichi Gakuin University, 12, Araike, Iwasaki-cho, Nisshin, Aichi, Japan

    Masahiko Yamamoto

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  1. Yasuhiro Tanaka
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  2. Takashi Tsuboi
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Correspondence to Gen Sobue.

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Tanaka, Y., Tsuboi, T., Watanabe, H. et al. Voice features of Parkinson’s disease patients with subthalamic nucleus deep brain stimulation. J Neurol 262, 1173–1181 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00415-015-7681-z

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