Game-based augmented visual feedback for enlarging speech movements in Parkinson’s disease

Purpose: The purpose of this pilot study was to demonstrate the effect of augmented visual feedback on acquisition and short-term retention of a relatively simple instruction to increase movement amplitude during speaking tasks in patients with dysarthria due to Parkinson’s disease (PD). Method: Nine patients diagnosed with PD, hypokinetic dysarthria, and impaired speech intelligibility participated in a training program aimed at increasing the size of their articulatory (tongue) movements during sentences. Two sessions were conducted: a baseline and training session, followed by a retention session 48 hr later. At baseline, sentences were produced at normal, loud, and clear speaking conditions. Game-based visual feedback regarding the size of the articulatory working space (AWS) was presented during training. Results: Eight of nine participants benefited from training, increasing their sentence AWS to a greater degree following feedback as compared with the baseline loud and clear conditions. The majority of participants were able to demonstrate the learned skill at the retention session. Conclusions: This study demonstrated the feasibility of augmented visual feedback via articulatory kinematics for training movement enlargement in patients with hypokinesia due to PD.