Experts claim that the first warning sign of Parkinson’s disease may not be muscle stiffness, tremors, or balance problems.
Alternatively, altered speech may appear in front of these other characteristic symptoms, say researchers in Lithuania.
It is believed that more than ten million people worldwide suffer from this condition, and Parkinson’s disease results from the loss of neurons in an area of the brain responsible for producing dopamine, which helps coordinate the movement of the body.
It gets worse over time as more cells die, eventually making patients struggle to complete daily tasks.
But as motor activity decreases, so does the function of the vocal cords, diaphragm and lungs, experts say.
“Changes in speech often occur even before motor function disorders,” said Ritis Maskelinas, a data scientist at Kaunas University of Technology. This, he added, is why “fuzzy speech may be the first sign of illness.”
Professor Virgilios Olozas, who was involved in the same study, said that patients with Parkinson’s disease in its early stages may speak in a quieter manner.
This, he said, can also be monotonous, less expressive, slower, more fragmented, and may be very difficult to notice by ear.
Symptoms of the disease, such as muscle stiffness, often appear in only about 80% of neurons.
There are no tests that can definitively show that someone has Parkinson’s disease.
But detecting it early can lead to faster control of the disease, according to leading neurologists.
The Lithuanian team is now working on a way to detect Parkinson’s disease early, perhaps through a mobile app.
Professor Maskelinas said the link between Parkinson’s disease and speech abnormalities had been clear since the 1960s, but advances in technology had made it easier to analyze.
The researchers used artificial intelligence to analyze and evaluate speech samples from 61 patients with Parkinson’s disease and 43 healthy volunteers.
In a soundproofed room, a microphone was used to record the speech of both groups.
Then an AI algorithm was used to process the recordings and analyze the differences between them.
“We are not creating a substitute for routine patient screening – our method is designed to facilitate early diagnosis of the disease and track the effectiveness of treatment,” Maskelinas said.
They plan to expand the study to see if this could be the best way to diagnose Parkinson’s disease early. However, Naveena Kapoor, from Parkinson’s Disease UK, said altered speech is a symptom of many, but not all, people with the condition.
Kapoor said, “There is currently no definitive test to detect Parkinson’s disease. This research focuses on detecting altered speech as an early symptom. The results were taken from people who had already been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in order to confirm that AI technology is able to detect altered speech as an early sign of the disease.” Parkinson’s disease, and participants without the condition will need to be studied for an extended period of time to see if they eventually develop the condition in years to come.
It’s great to see more research on early detection of Parkinson’s disease so that we have new ways to diagnose and monitor the condition as early intervention and treatment can really help people live well with this condition.”
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