Speech of people with Parkinson's disease (PD) is often perceived by others as hesitant, slow, quiet, garbled and repetitive. These speech problems likely contribute to problems with social interactions, thus further isolating people with PD. For example, lower voices can make it more difficult for people with PD to make themselves understood. If you are dealing with a patient, kind individual, talking softly and lots of hesitations when you speak will not create major problems during the interaction. But when you are dealing with busy strangers, you do not want to make it harder for them to understand your speech. So, what can you do if you are experiencing speech problems as part of your PD?
If you can improve your vocal intensity and reduce the number of “dysfluencies” in your speech, then your social interactions might be more rewarding. Dysfluencies are things like hesitations, too many pauses, stutterings, incorrect word choice, and mispronunciations. But, how can you reduce these dysfluencies while increasing your vocal intensity and loudness?
Speech therapy is one possibility. Despite the fact that upwards of 90% of people with PD have speech and voice problems, studies show that only 3% to 4% of people with PD receive speech treatment. This is doubly unfortunate as other studies show that speech therapy is effective for speech disorders of PD. In particular, the Lee Silverman Voice Therapy does just that. This intensive training of voice exercises targets vocal intensity, quality and variation. Interestingly, the benefits of speech therapy seem to spill over into other areas that are affected by PD such as facial expression and swallowing.
Although speech therapy involves a large time commitment (sometimes several visits per week), the benefits will be impressive. In the long run, it will potentially improve all your social interactions to boot.
Source:
Speech treatment for Parkinson's disease. Ramig LO, Fox C, Sapir S. Expert Rev Neurother. 2008 Feb;8(2):297-309. Review.
