Dysarthria Management for Minor Groups

Not Applicable

Recruiting

• Conditions: Parkinson Disease; Dysarthria

• Registration Number: NCT06593860
• Lead Sponsor: Florida State University

Brief Summary

This study develops and conduct a small-scale clinical trial study in which the linguistic and cultural diversity of the participants is considered. Speech therapy and counseling services are provided to both patients with Parkinson\'s disease and their caregivers.

Detailed Description

Attention has been increasingly paid to the "culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD)" communities which typically include dialectal users of English, monolingual and multilingual speakers of minority languages, and bilingual speakers of English and a minority language. However, among these, monolingual speakers of minority languages living in the US have been nearly excluded from dysarthria management. Most of these are first-generation immigrants who are well documented to have limited access to financial and medical services and have poorer health outcomes including communication difficulties. This creates critical health disparities in the field of communication rehabilitation.

This study will (1) examine effects of speech therapy on PD patients' speech acoustics and intelligibility, (2) examine effects of the intervention program on communication participation and well-being of both PD patients and their families. Our primary outcome measures, speech intelligibility and acoustic measures, are hypothesized to show improvements. Acoustic predictors of speech intelligibility are expected to include acoustic vowel space and voice onset time. These hypotheses are based on literature reporting (1) positive changes in speech function after intensive treatment programs focusing on vocal effort and hyperarticulation and (2) language-specific contributors to speech intelligibility in PD. Our secondary outcome measures include (1) communication participation and (2) well-being measures which will be obtained from both PD patients and family members. Based on previous research, the measures are hypothesized to show improved communication participation and well-being in both PD patients and their families following therapy.

Study Timeline

• Study Start: 2024-08-05
• Status Verified: 2024-09
• Study First Submitted: 2024-09-06
• Study First Submitted QC: 2024-09-09
• Last Update Submitted: 2024-09-09
• Study First Posted: 2024-09-13
• Last Update Posted: 2024-09-13
• Primary Completion: 2025-12-31
• Study Completion: 2025-12-31

Recruitment & Eligibility

• Status: RECRUITING
• Sex: All
• Target Recruitment: 32

Inclusion Criteria

• Medical diagnosis of PD
• No history of other neurological disease
• Native speaker of Korean
• Age between 25 and 85
• Diagnosis of dysarthria secondary to PD from an SLP
• Self-reported typical hearing
• Access to high-speed internet for therapy sessions

Exclusion Criteria

• A score of 23 or below on the Korean Montreal Cognitive Assessment
• Evidence of voice-speech disorders not-related to PD
• Received speech therapy for PD-related problems in the past one year
• Have no family members to participate in the project.

Study & Design

• Study Type: INTERVENTIONAL
• Study Design: CROSSOVER

Primary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Speech Intelligibility Score on a Visual Analogue Scale	Immediately after and 6 months after treatment	Speech intelligibility will be estimated using the visual analogue scale method. Listeners will rate the degree to which they understood the speech recordings on a continuous line. The two ends will be labeled, totally unintelligible and completely intelligible, respectively.
Vowel Space Area (kHz)	Immediately after and 6 months after treatment	Two acoustic measures will be measured as Primary Outcome. The first one is the size of vowel space area, which has been frequently reported to correlate with speech intelligibility in people with Parkinson\'s disease. T
Speaking Rate (syl/s)	Immediately after and 6 months after treatment	The second acoustic measures to be included as Primary Outcome is speaking rate. This will be reported as the number of syllables produced in one second.

Secondary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Dysarthria Impact Profile (DIP)	Immediately after and 6 months after treatment	DIP is an assessment tool designed to measure the psychosocial impact of dysarthria on affected individuals. It consists of several sections with statements rated on a five-point scale, ranging from "strongly agree" to "strongly disagree." DIP incorporates positively and negatively worded statements with differing scoring schemes. This will be obtained from people with Parkinson's disease.
Everyday Communication Measure	Immediately after and 6 months after treatment	Family members will also be asked to rate five different aspects of the PD participant's everyday communication abilities using Everyday Communication Measures on a scale of 1 (poor) to 7 (very good). Example questions include, "how easy is it to understand the speaker?" and "how often does the speaker initiate conversation with you?". This will be obtained from family members of PD participants.
Quality of Family Life Scale	Immediately after and 6 months after treatment	The Family Quality of Life Scale (FQOL) is a 25-item instrument used to measure several aspects of families' perceived satisfaction in terms of quality of family life (e.g., family interaction, emotional well-being, physical/material well-being, and disability-related support).
Perceived Stress Scale	Immediately after and 6 months after treatment	The Perceived Stress Scale (PSS-10; Cohen et al., 1983) will be used for measuring psychological stress. Among the three versions of the PSS, the Korean version of PSS-10 will be used.

Trial Locations

Locations (1)

Florida State University; 🇺🇸 Tallahassee, Florida, United States