Immediate and long‐term effects of speech treatment targets and intensive dosage on Parkinson's disease dysphonia and the speech motor network: Randomized controlled trial

This study compared acoustic and neural changes accompanying two treatments matched for intensive dosage but having two different treatment targets (voice or articulation) to dissociate the effects of treatment target and intensive dosage in speech therapies. Nineteen participants with Parkinsonian dysphonia (11 F) were randomized to three groups: intensive treatment targeting voice (voice group, n = 6), targeting articulation (articulation group, n = 7), or an untreated group (no treatment, n = 6). The severity of dysphonia was assessed by the smoothed cepstral peak prominence (CPPS) and neuronal changes were evaluated by cerebral blood flow (CBF) recorded at baseline, posttreatment, and 7‐month follow‐up. Only the voice treatment resulted in significant posttreatment improvement in CPPS, which was maintained at 7 months. Following voice treatment, increased activity in left premotor and bilateral auditory cortices was observed at posttreatment, and in the left motor and auditory cortices at 7‐month follow‐up. Articulation treatment resulted in increased activity in bilateral premotor and left insular cortices that were sustained at a 7‐month follow‐up. Activation in the auditory cortices and a significant correlation between the CPPS and CBF in motor and auditory cortices was observed only in the voice group. The intensive dosage resulted in long‐lasting behavioral and neural effects as the no‐treatment group showed a progressive decrease in activity in areas of the speech motor network out to a 7‐month follow‐up. These results indicate that dysphonia and the speech motor network can be differentially modified by treatment targets, while intensive dosage contributes to long‐lasting effects of speech treatments.