A study of voice profiles and acoustic signs in patients with Parkinson’s disease in North India

We aimed to study the voice profiles of patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD) and correlate the profiles with disease severity. A total of 133 patients with PD were recruited. Patients were divided into two groups: Group 1 with a Unified Parkinson’s Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS) score of ⩽45; and Group 2 with a UPDRS >45. Speech was analyzed using the Indian Speech and Hearing Association (ISHA) articulation assessment and Vaghmi software. A total of 87 patients (65.41%) reported a history of speech problems. Examination revealed slow reading speed (64.7% of patients), hoarseness of voice (60.2%), articulatory defect (39.8%) and jerky speech (32.3%) as common abnormalities. Misarticulation was most often observed among the labial (42.1%), followed by lingual and palatal syllables. The ISHA articulation test demonstrated significant differences in mean numbers of words distorted (p < 0.001) and intelligible speech (p = 0.004) between patients with early and advanced PD. Vaghmi software analysis (Speech and Voice Systems, Bangalore, India) also revealed significant difference between the two groups in maximum phonation duration (p = 0.034), inability to phonate (noiseless speech, Z; p = 0.002) and the mean noise-to-noiseless speech (S/Z) ratio (p = 0.006).