The effectiveness of Lee Silverman Voice Treatment therapy issued interactively through an Ipad device: a non-inferiority study

IntroductionThis study compared the differences in recorded speech variables between people treated with conventional ‘in person’ Lee Silverman Voice Treatment (LSVT) and those treated remotely via iPad-based ‘Facetime’.MethodEight participants were selected for the iPad LSVT, and 21 similarly matched subjects were selected from existing data to form the ‘in person’ group. Participants in both groups had diagnosed idiopathic Parkinson’s disease and moderate hypokinetic dysarthria. Eighteen sessions of prescribed LSVT comprising a pre-treatment assessment, 16 treatment sessions, and a six months’ post-treatment assessment were administered for each person. In both groups, pre- and post-treatment assessments were conducted face-to-face. Performance measures were recorded during assessment and treatment. Average measures were determined for all tasks at all time points and a summary outcome variable was composed from across-task performance.ResultsNon-inferiority testing confirmed that iPad LSVT was non-infe...