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).
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