New computer aided device for real time analysis of speech of people with Parkinson’s disease

Abstract

Parkinson’s  disease  (PD)  is  a  neurodegenerative  disorder  that  affects  the  coordination of muscles and limbs, including those responsible of the speech production. The lack of control of the limbs and muscles involved in the speech production  process  can  generate  intelligibility  problems  and  this  situation  has  a  negative  impact  in  the  social  interaction  of  the  patients.  It  is  already  demonstrated that constant speech therapy can improve the communication abilities of the patients; however, the measurement of the recovery progress is done subjectively by speech therapists and neurologists. Due to this, it is required the development of flexible tools able to asses and guide the speech therapy  of  the  patients.  In  this  paper  the  design  and  deployment  of  a  new  device  for  the  real  time  assessment  of  speech  signals  of  people  with  PD  is  presented. The processes of design and deployment include the development on three platforms: first, a graphic user interface is developed on Matlab, second the first prototype is implemented on a digital signal processor (DSP) and third, the final device is developed on a mini-computer. The device is equipped  with  an  audio  codec,  storage  capacity  and  the  processing  unit.  Besides, the system is complemented with a monitor to display the processed information on real time and with a keyboard enabling the interaction of the end-user with the device. Different acoustics and nonlinear dynamics measures which have been used in the state of the art for the assessment of speech of people with PD are implemented on the three mentioned platforms. In accordance with the state of the art, the designed platforms show an increment in the variation of the fundamental period of speech (commonly called pitch) of people with PD. Additionally, the decrease of the vocal space area is validated for the case of patients with PD. These results indicate that the designed device is useful to perform the assessment and monitoring of the speech therapy of people with PD.