Parkinson’s Disease Monitoring from Phonation Biomechanics

Organic as well as neurologic diseases leave important correlates in phonation. Parkinson’s Disease (PD) may leave marks in vocal fold dystonia and tremor. Biomechanical parameters monitoring vocal fold tension and unbalance, as well as tremor are defined in the study. These correlates are known to be of help in tracing the neuromotor activity of both laryngeal and articulatory pathways. As the population affected by PD is mainly above 60, the main problem found is how to differentiate PD phonation correlates from aging voice (presbyphonia). An important objective is to explore which correlates react differentially to PD than to aging voice. As an example a study is conducted on a set of male PD patients being monitored in short intervals by recording their phonation. The results of these longitudinal studies are presented and discussed.