It hasn’t found any correlation between VHI and disease severity (UPDRS-III)

It hasn’t found any correlation between VHI and disease severity (UPDRS-III). (and its 3 domains) was investigated based on patients sex, UPDRS-III score H&Y and VHI. Results Total VHI and its 3 domains had no relationship with disease severity (H&Y) in all patients and by sex separation. However, there was a positive correlation between VHI and disease severity (UPDRS-III) (r = 0.485). There LY294002 was also a relation between physical and functional domains of VHI and UPDRS (rP=0.530, rF=0.479) while no relationship observed regarding sex differences. 9 out of 18 UPDRS-III items had strong relationship with VHI (total and 3subscales). Conclusion Iranian PD patients feel handicap according to voice disorder caused by PD. Patient satisfaction of voice decreases with the disease severity and progression. A larger sample size is necessary to find relationship in genders. VHI is an important issue could be offered to be used in PD beside other assessments strong class=”kwd-title” Keywords: Parkinson’s disease, Disease severity, Voice, VHI, Quality of life Introduction Parkinson’s disease (PD) is the second common neurodegenerative disease in the world, after Alzheimer’s disease (1). It is caused by gradual death of many neuronal systems specially dopaminergic neurons in substantia nigra pars compacta (2C4). The most important risk factor of PD is age (5, 6). By increasing of age, the prevalence of PD is growing. There is 3:2 ratio of males to females (2). PD results in hypokinetic dysarthria that affects all aspects of speech such as respiration, phonation, articulation and prosody (7, 8). Nearly 90% of patients have oral communication disorders (9) but voice is affected more and sooner than other speech subsystems (10C12). One third of Parkinson patients suffer from dysphonia and they present breathy and harsh voice as their most debilitating deficit (13). Voice disorders consist of several different aspects, therefore several measurements and scales should be used (14). LY294002 Clinical evaluation of voice includes perceptual, acoustic, (video) laryngosteroboscopic and aerodynamic assessments (14C16) that are very useful in clinical evaluation of neurological disorders (15, 17). Neither voice objective scales such as video/ auditory nor perceptual assessment can evaluate the amount of handicap that a patient experiences as a result of voice disorder. Patient-based measurements can add some necessary supplementary information to biological and physiological data that are associated with voice disorder (17, 18). Voice Handicap Index (VHI) is a common questionnaire used in a wide range of voice disorders and it is the most applicable subjective self-rating questionnaire in patients who have perceived voice disability. It shows the effect of disabilities resulting from voice handicap on quality of life (QOL) (15, 16). VHI is a perceptual analysis tool of voice quality that shows us the influence of voice problems and their treatments on patients QOL (19). Like other neurodegenerative disorders the severity of the PD progresses over the time (20, 21). There are several ways to assess motor performance and disease severity in PD. The Unified Parkinson’s Disease Rating Scale(UPDRS) is the most common tool for clinical evaluation of PD (2) and measures motor and some of non-motor symptoms of PD. The 3rd part of the test (UPDRS-III) evaluates all fundamental motor characteristics of PD (22). In present research, movement disorder society (MDS-UPDRS) version of the test has been used. Hoehn and Yahr (H&Y) is another scale for PD’s severity that rates between LY294002 0-5 based on the level of clinical disabilities Rabbit polyclonal to CDK4 (23). There is no study about VHI in Iranian PD’s patients; and therefore no research about any relation between PD’s motor disabilities and voice disorder. Due to increase in Iranian aged population in future decades, PD prevalence will increase as well (24), and necessity of these kinds of studies are obvious. Several LY294002 studies express VHI progression in PD and suggest the effective role of VHI LY294002 in determination of voice disorder influence on PD’s quality of life (25C27). The only research about relation between movement disabilities and VHI in PD under pharmacologic therapy is a study by Midi et al (28)..