title: Quantitative assessment of motor speech abnormalities in idiopathic rapid eye movement sleep behaviour disorder.
abstract: Patients with idiopathic rapid eye movement sleep behaviour disorder (RBD) are at substantial risk for developing Parkinson's disease (PD) or related neurodegenerative disorders. Speech is an important indicator of motor function and movement coordination, and therefore may be an extremely sensitive early marker of changes due to prodromal neurodegeneration.
  
  
  
  Speech data were acquired from 16 RBD subjects and 16 age- and sex-matched healthy control subjects. Objective acoustic assessment of 15 speech dimensions representing various phonatory, articulatory, and prosodic deviations was performed. Statistical models were applied to characterise speech disorders in RBD and to estimate sensitivity and specificity in differentiating between RBD and control subjects.
  
  
  
  Some form of speech impairment was revealed in 88% of RBD subjects. Articulatory deficits were the most prominent findings in RBD. In comparison to controls, the RBD group showed significant alterations in irregular alternating motion rates (p = 0.009) and articulatory decay (p = 0.01). The combination of four distinctive speech dimensions, including aperiodicity, irregular alternating motion rates, articulatory decay, and dysfluency, led to 96% sensitivity and 79% specificity in discriminating between RBD and control subjects. Speech impairment was significantly more pronounced in RBD subjects with the motor score of the Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale greater than 4 points when compared to other RBD individuals.
  
  
  
  Simple quantitative speech motor measures may be suitable for the reliable detection of prodromal neurodegeneration in subjects with RBD, and therefore may provide important outcomes for future therapy trials.
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Department of Circuit Theory, Czech Technical University in Prague, Prague, Czech Republic; Department of Neurology and Centre of Clinical Neuroscience, Charles University in Prague, First Faculty of Medicine, Prague, Czech Republic. Electronic address: rusz.mz@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Jan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Rusz
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Department of Circuit Theory, Czech Technical University in Prague, Prague, Czech Republic.
authors.forename: Jan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Hlavnička
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Department of Circuit Theory, Czech Technical University in Prague, Prague, Czech Republic.
authors.forename: Tereza
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Tykalová
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology and Centre of Clinical Neuroscience, Charles University in Prague, First Faculty of Medicine, Prague, Czech Republic; National Institute of Mental Health, Czech Republic.
authors.forename: Jitka
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Bušková
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology and Centre of Clinical Neuroscience, Charles University in Prague, First Faculty of Medicine, Prague, Czech Republic.
authors.forename: Olga
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Ulmanová
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology and Centre of Clinical Neuroscience, Charles University in Prague, First Faculty of Medicine, Prague, Czech Republic.
authors.forename: Evžen
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Růžička
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology and Centre of Clinical Neuroscience, Charles University in Prague, First Faculty of Medicine, Prague, Czech Republic.
authors.forename: Karel
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Šonka
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D001184:Articulation Disorders / Q000503:physiopathology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010300:Parkinson Disease / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000503:physiopathology*; D020187:REM Sleep Behavior Disorder / Q000503:physiopathology*; D012720:Severity of Illness Index
keywords: Acoustic analyses; Dysarthria; Parkinson's disease; Parkinsonism; Speech and voice disorders