Assessment of Nonverbal and Verbal Apraxia in Patients with Parkinson's Disease.

Monia Presotto,Artur Francisco Shumacher Shuh,Maira Rozenfeld Olchik,Carlos R M Rieder

doi:10.1155/2015/840327

Abstract

Objective. To assess the presence of nonverbal and verbal apraxia in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) and analyze the correlation between these conditions and patient age, education, duration of disease, and PD stage, as well as evaluate the correlation between the two types of apraxia and the frequency and types of verbal apraxic errors made by patients in the sample. Method. This was an observational prevalence study. The sample comprised 45 patients with PD seen at the Movement Disorders Clinic of the Clinical Hospital of Porto Alegre, Brazil. Patients were evaluated using the Speech Apraxia Assessment Protocol and PD stages were classified according to the Hoehn and Yahr scale. Results. The rate of nonverbal apraxia and verbal apraxia in the present sample was 24.4%. Verbal apraxia was significantly correlated with education (p ≤ 0.05). The most frequent types of verbal apraxic errors were omissions (70.8%). The analysis of manner and place of articulation showed that most errors occurred during the production of trill (57.7%) and dentoalveolar (92%) phonemes, consecutively. Conclusion. Patients with PD presented nonverbal and verbal apraxia and made several verbal apraxic errors. Verbal apraxia was correlated with education levels.

Highlights

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a chronic neurological condition of idiopathic nature, whose typical symptoms are rigidity, bradykinesia, resting tremor, and postural instability
It is important to note that the initial aim of the present study was to evaluate nonverbal apraxia and verbal apraxia, we investigated any alterations in the five main parameters of speech, which could characterize dysarthria
The mean and minimum and maximum values of age, education, duration of disease, stage of PD (H&Y), and gender are shown in Table 2, as are the results of comparisons between patients with and without apraxia

Summary

Graduate School of Medicine

Medical Sciences, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), Brazil 2Department of Speech Pathology, UFRGS, Brazil 3Movement Disorders Group, The Clinical Hospital of Porto Alegre (HCPA), Ramiro Barcelos 2350, 90035-903 Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil 4The Movement Disorders Clinic, The Clinical Hospital of Porto Alegre (HCPA), Ramiro Barcelos 2350, 90035-903 Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil 5The Federal University of Health Sciences of Porto Alegre (UFCSPA), Brazil

Objective

Introduction

Method

Results

Discussion

Conclusion