Game-Based Augmented Visual Feedback for Enlarging Speech Movements in Parkinson's Disease

Purpose

The purpose of this pilot study was to demonstrate the effect of augmented visual feedback on acquisition and short-term retention of a relatively simple instruction to increase movement amplitude during speaking tasks in patients with dysarthria due to Parkinson's disease (PD).

Method

Nine patients diagnosed with PD, hypokinetic dysarthria, and impaired speech intelligibility participated in a training program aimed at increasing the size of their articulatory (tongue) movements during sentences. Two sessions were conducted: a baseline and training session, followed by a retention session 48 hr later. At baseline, sentences were produced at normal, loud, and clear speaking conditions. Game-based visual feedback regarding the size of the articulatory working space (AWS) was presented during training.

Results

Eight of nine participants benefited from training, increasing their sentence AWS to a greater degree following feedback as compared with the baseline loud and clear conditions. The majority of participants were able to demonstrate the learned skill at the retention session.

Conclusions

This study demonstrated the feasibility of augmented visual feedback via articulatory kinematics for training movement enlargement in patients with hypokinesia due to PD.

Supplemental Materials

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