Objectives: Parkinson's disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disease leading to motor impairments and dystonia across diverse muscle groups including vocal muscles. The vocal production challenges associated with PD have received considerably less research attention than the primary gross motor symptoms of the disease despite having a substantial effect on quality of life. Increasingly, people living with PD are discovering group singing as an asset-based approach to community building that is purported to strengthen vocal muscles and improve vocal quality.
Study Design/methods: The present study investigated the impact of community choir on vocal production in people living with PD across two sites. Prior to and immediately following a 12-week community choir at each site, vocal testing included a range of vocal-acoustic measures, including lowest and highest achievable pitch, duration of phonation, loudness, jitter, and shimmer.
Results: Results showed that group singing significantly improved some, though not all, measures of vocal production. Group singing improved lowest pitch (both groups), duration (both groups), intensity (one group), and jitter (one group) and shimmer (both groups).
Conclusions: These findings support community choir as a feasible and scalable complementary approach to managing vocal production challenges associated with PD.
Download full-text PDF |
Source |
|---|---|
| http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jvoice.2022.12.001 | DOI Listing |
Publication Analysis
Top Keywords
Similar Publications
The songbird connectome (OSCINE-NET.ORG): structure-function organization beyond the canonical vocal control network.
BMC Neurosci
December 2024
Department of Medicine, The University of Chicago, 5841 S Maryland Ave, Chicago, IL, 60637, USA.
Background: Understanding the neural basis of behavior requires insight into how different brain systems coordinate with each other. Existing connectomes for various species have highlighted brain systems essential to various aspects of behavior, yet their application to complex learned behaviors remains limited. Research on vocal learning in songbirds has extensively focused on the vocal control network, though recent work implicates a variety of circuits in contributing to important aspects of vocal behavior.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA complex acoustical environment during development enhances auditory perception and coding efficiency in the zebra finch.
J Neurosci
December 2024
Department of Psychology, University of Virginia, Charlottesville VA 22904, USA
Sensory experience during development has lasting effects on perception and neural processing. Exposing juvenile animals to artificial stimuli influences the tuning and functional organization of the auditory cortex, but less is known about how the rich acoustical environments experienced by vocal communicators affect the processing of complex vocalizations. Here, we show that in zebra finches (), a colonial-breeding songbird species, exposure to a naturalistic social-acoustical environment during development has a profound impact on auditory perceptual behavior and on cortical-level auditory responses to conspecific song.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFContrastive Learning Approach for Assessment of Phonological Precision in Patients with Tongue Cancer Using MRI Data.
Interspeech
September 2024
Pattern Recognition Lab. Friedrich-Alexander University, Erlangen, Germany.
Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) allows analyzing speech production by capturing high-resolution images of the dynamic processes in the vocal tract. In clinical applications, combining MRI with synchronized speech recordings leads to improved patient outcomes, especially if a phonological-based approach is used for assessment. However, when audio signals are unavailable, the recognition accuracy of sounds is decreased when using only MRI data.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCalifornia mice (Peromyscus californicus) adjust mouth movements for vocal production during early postnatal development.
BMC Biol
December 2024
College of Veterinary Medicine, Midwestern University, Glendale, AZ, USA.
Background: The order Rodentia is the largest group of mammals. Diversification of vocal communication has contributed to rodent radiation and allowed them to occupy diverse habitats and adopt different social systems. The mechanism by which efficient vocal sounds, which carry over surprisingly large distances, are generated is incompletely understood.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFRobust fundamental frequency-detection algorithm unaffected by the presence of hoarseness in human voice.
J Acoust Soc Am
December 2024
Department of Otorhinolaryngology and Head & Neck Surgery, Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine, Osaka 565-0871, Japan.
The fundamental frequency (fo) is pivotal for quantifying vocal-fold characteristics. However, the accuracy of fo estimation in hoarse voices is notably low, and no definitive algorithm for fo estimation has been previously established. In this study, we introduce an algorithm named, "Spectral-based fo Estimator Emphasized by Domination and Sequence (SFEEDS)," which enhances the spectrum method and conducted comparative analyses with conventional estimation methods.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWant AI Summaries of new PubMed Abstracts delivered to your In-box?
Enter search terms and have AI summaries delivered each week - change queries or unsubscribe any time!