Living with Dysarthria: Evaluation of a Self-Report Questionnaire

Abstract

The study describes an effort to evaluate the speech difficulties as perceived by individuals with dysarthria. A self-report questionnaire, Living with Neurologically Based Speech Difficulties (Living with Dysarthria), was answered by 55 individuals with varying types and degrees of dysarthria. Results show that both type and degree of subjectively perceived communicative difficulties varied. Degree of communicative difficulties was not related to age, gender, diagnosis, disease duration or employment status in this group. Generally, the overriding problems were related to restrictions in communicative participation, possibilities to actively take part in work and studies and to express one’s personality were particularly affected. Communication was also affected by emotions and by the number and familiarity of people present in communicative encounters. The dominating speech difficulties were related to reduced speech rate and a need for repetition as a consequence of misunderstandings. A statistically nonsignificant difference was found between the higher mean of the group with moderate dysarthria compared to the groups with severe and mild dysarthria, indicating that severity of dysarthria does not necessarily predict extent of perceived communicative difficulties. It is concluded that systematic subjective reports should always be included in the assessment of individuals with acquired dysarthria.

Clima de grupo na terapia vocal de pacientes com Doença de Parkinson

“…The demand for speech-language pathology therapy has increased, therefore, group therapy became necessary and convenient (2,18,20) , both to meet the main needs of the patients, in cases of PD (19) , and also to support some of their emotional aspects (2) . Currently, many speech therapies are performed in a group, and they are based on a physiological approach for voice treatment, that includes vocal effort techniques and speech monitoring skills.…”

“…Taking into account this information, the LwD questionnaire was applied in order to identify how patients with dysarthria notice themselves, their difficulties of speech and how they handle situations (19) . The LwD is considered to be a more complex tool for the self-evaluation than the one presented previously.…”

“…The Brazilian version of the protocol was translated by Puhl, Diaféria, Padovani and Behlau (18) , based on its original version, Living with Dysarthria (19) , developed by the Vårdal Institute.…”

“…The total score and the average score for each one of the 10 sections were calculated. The data analysis was based on the Hartelius et al (19) , study.…”

Aspectos comunicativos e enfrentamento da disfonia em pacientes com doença de Parkinson

“…Thus, we selected three protocols for this population: the Protocolo de Estratégias de Enfrentamento das Disfonias (PEED-BR) (12) , a version translated and adapted from Voice Disability Coping Questionnaire (VDCQ) (13) ; the Escala de Sintomas Vocais (ESV) (11) , validated for Brazilian Portuguese (BP) from Voice Symptom Scale (VoiSS) (14) ; and the Questionário Vivendo com Disartria (VcD) (15) , translated and adapted from the original Living with dysarthria (LwD) (16) . The use of these three instruments allow us to check how individuals face a vocal problem, what the main vocal symptoms are, and how they live with the problems affecting their communication skills, giving them more information on their quality of life and helping in their vocal treatment by implementing strategies focused on limitations and coping.…”