title: Acoustic voice assessment in Parkinson's disease patients submitted to posteroventral pallidotomy.
abstract: Long-term complications in levodopa treated Parkinson's disease (PD) patients caused a resurgence of interest in pallidotomy as an option of treatment. However, postoperative complications such as speech disorders can occur.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  The aim of this study is to evaluate the acoustic voice in PD patients, before and after posteroventral pallidotomy.
  
  
  METHODS
  Twelve patients with PD were submitted to neurological and voice assessments during the off and on phases, in the pre-operative, 1st and 3rd post-operative months. The patients were evaluated with the UPDRS and the vocal acoustic parameters -- f0, NHR, jitter, PPQ, Shimmer, APQ (using the software MultiSpeech-Kay Elemetrics-3700).
  
  
  RESULTS
  The off phase UPDRS scores revealed a tendency to improvement at the 1st month and the off phase worsened. The shimmer and APQ improved.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This study shows that pallidotomy has little improvement on functional use of communication of PD patients.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery, Universidade Federal de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil.
authors.forename: Lucia Figueiredo
authors.initials: LF
authors.lastname: Mourão
authors.forename: Patrícia Maria de Carvalho
authors.initials: PM
authors.lastname: Aguiar
authors.forename: Fernando Antônio Patriani
authors.initials: FA
authors.lastname: Ferraz
authors.forename: Mara Suzana
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Behlau
authors.forename: Henrique Ballalai
authors.initials: HB
authors.lastname: Ferraz
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000978:Antiparkinson Agents / Q000009:adverse effects / Q000627:therapeutic use; D004401:Dysarthria / Q000209:etiology* / Q000601:surgery; D005260:Female; D005917:Globus Pallidus / Q000601:surgery*; D006801:Humans; D007980:Levodopa / Q000009:adverse effects / Q000627:therapeutic use; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010300:Parkinson Disease / Q000150:complications / Q000601:surgery*; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D013061:Speech Acoustics; D016896:Treatment Outcome; D014832:Voice Disorders / Q000209:etiology* / Q000601:surgery; D014833:Voice Quality
chemical_list: D000978:Antiparkinson Agents; D007980:Levodopa