AUTHOR=Kieling Maiara Laís Mallmann , Finkelsztejn Alessandro , Konzen Viviana Regina , dos Santos Vanessa Brzoskowski , Ayres Annelise , Klein Iasmin , Rothe-Neves Rui , Olchik Maira Rozenfeld 

TITLE=Articulatory speech measures can be related to the severity of multiple sclerosis

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Neurology

VOLUME=Volume 14 - 2023

YEAR=2023

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/neurology/articles/10.3389/fneur.2023.1075736

DOI=10.3389/fneur.2023.1075736

ISSN=1664-2295

ABSTRACT=23.	Background: Dysarthria is one of the most frequent communication disorders in patients with Multiple
24.	Sclerosis (MS), with an estimated prevalence of around 50%. However, it is not clear if there is a
25.	relationship between dysarthria and the severity or duration of the disease. Objective: Describe the
26.	speech pattern in MS, correlate with clinical data, and compare with controls. Methods: A group 
27.	of MS patients (n=73) was matched to healthy controls (n=37) by sex and age. Individuals with 
28.	neurological and/or systemic conditions that could interfere with the speech were excluded. MS group 
29.	clinical data were obtained through the analysis of medical records. The speech assessment consisted 
30.	of auditory- perceptual and speech acoustic analysis, from recording the following speech tasks: 
31.	phonation and breathing (sustained vowel /a/); prosody (sentences with different intonation patterns) 
32.	and articulation (diadochokinesis; spontaneous speech; diphthong /iu/ repeatedly). Results: In MS, 
33.	72.6% of the individuals presented mild dysarthria, with alterations in speech subsystems: phonation,
34.	breathing, resonance, and articulation. In the acoustic analysis, individuals with MS were significantly
35.	worse than the control group (CG) in the variables: standard deviation of the fundamental frequency
36.	(p=0.001) and maximum phonation time (p=0.041). In diadochokinesis, individuals with MS had a 
37.	lower number of syllables, duration, and phonation time, and in spontaneous speech, a high number of 
38.	pauses were evidenced as compared to CG. Correlations were found between phonation time in 
39.	spontaneous speech and the Expanded Disability Status Scale (EDSS) (r=- 0.238, p=0.043) and 
40.	phonation ratio in spontaneous speech and EDSS (r=-0.265, p=0.023), which indicates a correlation 
41.	between the number of pauses during spontaneous speech and the severity of the disease.
42.	Conclusions: The speech profile in MS patients was mild dysarthria, with decline in the phonatory,
43.	respiratory, resonant, and articulatory subsystems of speech, respectively, in order of prevalence. The
44.	increased number of pauses during speech and lower rates of phonation ratio can reflect the severity of
45.	MS.