Department of Speech & Hearing Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98105, USA
Short Communication
Does the unified Parkinson's disease rating scale adequately estimate severity of dysarthria?
Author(s): Kristie A Spencer*, Katherine A Brown and Gillian Elder
Background: Speech decline is a common and detrimental
complication of Parkinson’s disease (PD). The Unified Parkinson’s
Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS) is typically used by the medical
community to gauge the presence and severity of PD symptoms,
including dysarthria. Accurately tracking the presence and severity
of dysarthria has important implications for differential diagnosis,
disease course, and therapeutic response.
Objectives: To determine the relationship between Movement
Disorder Society (MDS) UPDRS ratings and gold standard speech
intelligibility transcription scores.
Methods: Twenty-seven speakers with PD provided monologue
speech samples. MDS-UPDRS ratings of speech were compared to
average speech intelligibility scores attained by three naïve judges... View More»
Spanish 
Chinese 
Russian 
German 
French 
Japanese 
Portuguese 
Hindi 