Perceptual and qualitative voice alterations detected by GIRBAS in patients with Parkinson's disease: is there a relation with lung function and oxygenation?

Background: Impairments in respiration, voice and speech are common in people with Parkinson's disease (PD).

Aims: To evaluate the prevalence of dysphonia, assessed by a specific acoustic evaluation and description of the voice by the speech therapist (GIRBAS), and its relation with lung function and oxygenation, in particular cough ability and during the night or exercise desaturation.

Methods: This is a posthoc analysis of a prospective cross-sectional observational study on PD patients collecting anthropometric and clinical data, comorbidities, PD severity, motor function and balance, respiratory function at rest, during exercise and at night, voice function with acoustic analysis and presence of speech disorders, in addition to the GIRBAS scale. Based on GIRBAS Global dysphonia ('G') score, we divided patients into dysphonic (moderate-to-severe deviance from the euphonic condition) vs. no/mild dysphonic and analyzed the relations with respiratory impairments.

Results: We analyzed 55 patients and found significant impairments in both respiratory and voice/speech functions. Most patients (85.5%) presented mild-to-severe deviance from the euphonic condition in at least one GIRBAS perceptual element (80% of cases for Global dysphonia) and only 14.5% did not show deviance in all elements simultaneously. At Odds Ratio analysis, the risk of presenting nocturnal desaturation and reduced peak cough expiratory flow was approximately 24 and 8 times higher, respectively, in dysphonic patients vs. those with no/mild dysphonia.

Conclusion: Perceptual and qualitative evaluation of the voice with GIRBAS showed that mild-to-severe dysphonia was highly prevalent in PD patients, and associated with nocturnal oxygen desaturation and poor cough ability.