Using Speech Sounds to Enhance Occupational Performance in Young and Older Adults

Abstract

Functional independence in daily life depends largely on performing daily occupations smoothly and efficiently. Thus, intervention is needed as the quality of daily occupational performance declines with age in older adults. Recent experimental studies indicate an interactive relationship between speech and upper extremity motor control. These studies led to the suggestion that speech sounds or vocalization might be used to enhance motor performance. The present study compared the effect of vocalization on a daily motor performance in young and older adults. It included 13 young (mean 22.5 years) and 13 older adults (mean 75.5 years) with no known neurological impairments who performed the task of reaching for a cup and placing it on a shelf during four randomly chosen conditions: no vocalization, synchronized self-vocalization, external (experimenter) vocalization, and imagery vocalization. Arm and jaw movements were recorded using a search coil system. Kinematic data were analyzed using a two-way mixed design analysis of variance (ANOVA) with post hoc contrast analysis. Older adults were consistently slower than young participants for all test conditions (p<.001). Movements in both young and older adults made with either self-vocalization or external vocalization were significantly faster and smoother than movements made without vocalization or using imagery vocalization (p<.001). Vocalization effects on movement performance were significantly more pronounced in older adults than in younger participants (p<.001). The results suggest that vocalization improves motor performance of the daily living task studied, and the study design has clinical potential that may be used for facilitating task-related motor performance in older adults.

Upper extremity movement pattern of a common drinking task in well elderly women: a pilot study

“…Velocity was obtained by digital differentiation of the displacement data. Kinematic variables such as movement duration, peak velocity of movement, percentage of time to reach peak velocity of movement, and movement units were computed from the velocity data as described elsewhere (Maitra et al, 2003;Tr ombly and Wu, 1999). We compared the kinematic variables of movements (lifting and lowering) and the age group (young and old), by a two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) using movement as a repeated factor and age group as a between factor.…”

Effects of vocalization on elbow motion during reaching in persons with hemiparetic stroke

“…Upper extremity dysfunction after stroke remains a significant cause of disability and loss of independence [1]. Controlled upper extremity movements are critical to performing various occupations of daily living [15]. Therefore, rehabilitation of the upper extremity in people with stroke is considered very important.…”

“…Recent studies show that vocalization affects the movement of the upper extremities [7,[15][16][17]. Vocalization is defined as paralinguistic speech sounds made by both animals and humans to communicate with each other and to express emotions [15].…”

“…Vocalization is defined as paralinguistic speech sounds made by both animals and humans to communicate with each other and to express emotions [15]. Human vocalization may be verbal or nonverbal.…”

“…Verbal vocalizations are used to express meanings within the rules and structures of languages in specific cultures. Nonverbal vocalizations are used to express emotions like using sound exclamations: crying, laughter, and sighing [15].…”