The majority of people with Parkinson’s disease (PD) experience speech and voice disorders at some point during the course of the disease; these deficits may impair their quality of life. Medical and surgical treatments alone have not sufficiently alleviated speech disorders for people with PD, and in some cases have exacerbated or resulted in voice and speech impairment. A speech treatment approach called Lee Silverman Voice Treatment (LSVT LOUD®) has generated efficacy data for successfully treating voice and speech disorder in this population. The LSVT LOUD targets vocal loudness as a means of increasing vocal effort and improving coordination across the subsystems of speech. LSVT LOUD is delivered in a high dose that consists of four consecutive, individual 1-hour treatment sessions per week for 4 weeks (i.e., 16 sessions in 1 month); daily homework practice is assigned. Research has documented that treatment results can last out to two years, making LSVT LOUD the “gold standard” in treating speech disorders for people with Parkinson’s disease. Despite the established efficacy of LSVT LOUD, treatment of speech and voice remains an unmet need for many individuals in Puerto Rico due to lack access of trained and certified clinicians and inability to travel outside the island to receive the services. The objective of this study is to assess the clinical effectiveness of LSVT LOUD in the Spanish speaking population of Puerto Rico for treating voice disorders associated with Parkinson’s disease. A pre-test-post-test design is applied to assess the effectiveness of LSVT LOUD for the improvement of vocal loudness in the Spanish speaking population diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. This research will provide important information for clinicians about LSVT LOUD treatment efficacy in the Spanish speaking population diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. The findings from this study will have an important implication for enhancing treatment accessibility for individuals with Parkinson’s disease who seek voice and speech treatment.
Keywords: Lee Silverman Voice Treatment, LSVT LOUD®, Parkinson’s disease, hypokinetic dysarthria, neural plasticity, speech and voice disorder, speech and voice treatment, evidence-based practice
