Hi there, my name is Zoltan Galaz ([email protected]), and this is my Ph.D. thesis named "Analysis of motor and non-motor deficits in patients with Parkinson’s disease based on the acoustic analysis of dysarthric speech" (official webpage). I defended this thesis in december, 2018 at the Brno University of Technology, Czech Republic.
Hypokinetic dysarthria (HD) is a speech disorder occurring in up to 90% of patients suffering from idiopathic Parkinson’s disease (PD) that significantly contributes to unnaturalness and incomprehensibility of speech of these patients. The main aim of this doctoral thesis is to investigate possibilities of using quantitative para-clinical analysis of HD, employing speech parametrization, statistical analyses, and machine learning techniques, for diagnosis and remote objective assessment of PD. This thesis demonstrates that it is possible to use computerized acoustic analysis to sufficiently describe HD, especially dysprosody, which is characterized by flat speech melody and unnatural speech rate. Moreover, it demonstrates it is also possible to use robust clinically interpretable acoustic parameters quantifying various manifestations of HD, such as phonation, articulation, and prosody, to assess the severity of motor and non-motor symptoms of PD. Next, it presents the investigation of pathophysiological mechanisms shared by HD and freezing of gait in PD. And finally, it proves it is also possible to accurately estimate the change in gait-related deficits in the horizon of two years using acoustic analysis at the baseline.
For more information about the research related to this thesis, please see the official webpage of our research group: Brain Disease Analysis Laboratory (BDALab; we are a research group focused on the development of objective and non-invasive brain diseases analysis methods).