Audiology and Speech Pathology - Research Publications
Permanent URI for this collection
Search Results
1 - 3 of 3
-
ItemNo Preview AvailableIs age or culture important for the use of speech as a marker of depression?(Frontiers Research Foundation, 2012)Speech is a marker of depression severity and treatment response. Following on from a multisite randomised control trial which demonstrated the feasibility and validity of obtaining neurophysiologically based acoustic measures of depression in 25-65 year old English speakers, we sought to determine the efficacy of the methods in related clinically important cohorts: defined by age and language. 125 adults with major depression were recruited into an 8-week, open label observational study. Four cohorts were included: two English speaking groups (‘younger’ (n= 38) (18-25 years) and ‘older’ (n=27) (60-78 years)) and two Chinese speaking groups (Mandarin (n=29) and Cantonese speakers (n=31)). Participants beginning new treatments for depression were clinically evaluated at baseline, study midpoint (4 weeks), and end-point (8 weeks). After face to face assessment, participants completed the Quick Inventory of Depressive Symptomatology - Interactive Voice Response (QIDS-IVR) version using touch-tone telephones. Speech samples were also recorded for analysis of acoustic characteristics as clinical markers of depression severity and response to treatment. Timing-based measures of speech production, particularly during the performance of automatic speech tasks, showed the most significant correlations with overall depression severity. Specifically, associations between depression severity and total recording durations, pause times, pause variability, and speaking rates were consistent with previous studies. Few acoustic markers of speech, however, were significantly correlated with treatment response. Speech was significantly correlated with depression severity in all groups. Altered speech production and its relationship with clinician defined clinician treatment response was not clearly demonstrated, possibility due to low treatment response rates.
-
ItemCan we detect altered disease state in early stage Huntington’s Disease using acoustic markers of speech?(Australasian Speech Science and Technology Association (ASSTA), 2012)Altered prosody has been described in symptomatic Huntington’s Disease (HD) individuals, however, the extent to which acoustic analysis of speech is sensitive to gene positive pre-manifest (PreHD) individuals is unknown. Speech samples were acquired from 30 individuals carrying the mutant HTT gene (13 PreHD, 17 early stage HD) and 15 matched controls. Participants read a passage, produced a monologue, counted from 1-20 and said the days of the week. Data were analysed acoustically for measures of timing, frequency and intensity. Tasks were compared to determine their relative sensitivity to disease state. Tasks with greater cognitive demand appeared more suitable for detecting Huntington’s disease compared to tasks with high levels of automaticity.
-
ItemNo Preview AvailableObjective measures of efficacy of Deep Brain Stimulation for treatment of tremor(Frontiers, 2012)Patients with intractable tremor not alleviated by pharmaceutical therapies can be successfully treated using Deep Brain Stimulation of subcortical areas such as the Subthalamic Nucleus (STN). Current DBS devices produce constant-current or constant-voltage biphasic pulse trains and offer a range of pulse rate and pulse duration options as well as different current or voltage levels. The clinical method of setting the parameters by observation is non-ideal, firstly because of the number of possible parameter combinations, and a current lack of knowledge of how the parameters interact with each other, and secondly because subjective clinical observation is prone to observer error and bias. In this study, we aimed to develop an objective method of recording the severity of tremor and to use it to explore the effect on tremor of stimulus parameters. Six patients with Essential Tremor who had been fitted with a DBS device in the Posterior Subthalamic Area (PSA) participated in the study. Tremor was measured by position sensors attached to the arms and wrists while the patient was holding both arms stretched out in front of them and when performing a finger-nose pointing task. Clinical rating of tremor was also performed. Results of the experiments showed that the optimal stimulus parameters were subject specific and the effects of each parameter were non-monotonic, often with a very specific range providing therapeutic benefit (for example, Fig. 1). The objective measures were more sensitive than clinical judgement and show that an objective fitting method could improve benefits in individual patients.