Speech intelligibility in Parkinson's disease patients with zona incerta deep brain stimulation

OBJECTIVES: To investigate the effects of l‐dopa (Levodopa) and cZi‐DBS (deep brain stimulation in caudal zona incerta) on spontaneous speech intelligibility in patients with PD (Parkinson's disease). MATERIALS AND METHODS: Spontaneous utterances were extracted from anechoic recordings from 11 patients with PD preoperatively (off and on l‐dopa medication) and 6 and 12 months post bilateral cZi‐DBS operation (off and on stimulation, with simultaneous l‐dopa medication). Background noise with an amplitude corresponding to a clinical setting was added to the recordings. Intelligibility was assessed through a transcription task performed by 41 listeners in a randomized and blinded procedure. RESULTS: A group‐level worsening in spontaneous speech intelligibility was observed on cZi stimulation compared to off 6 months postoperatively (8 adverse, 1 positive, 2 no change). Twelve months postoperatively, adverse effects of cZi‐DBS were not frequently observed (2 positive, 3 adverse, 6 no change). l‐dopa administered preoperatively as part of the evaluation for DBS operation provided the overall best treatment outcome (1 adverse, 4 positive, 6 no change). CONCLUSIONS: cZi‐DBS was shown to have smaller negative effects when evaluated from spontaneous speech compared to speech effects reported previously. The previously reported reduction in word‐level intelligibility 12 months postoperatively was not transferred to spontaneous speech for most patients. Reduced intelligibility due to cZi stimulation was much more prominent 6 months postoperatively than at 12 months.