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News Archive
Background Noise May Help Parkinson's Patients
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Aug 29 2009
Scientists have long known that people automatically speak louder when there's background noise at places such as loud restaurants or raucous parties.
Now Purdue University researchers are using that phenomenon to help people with Parkinson's disease overcome the tendency to speak too quietly.
Nearly 90 percent of people with Parkinson's disease experience voice changes that can affect how loudly they speak, according to Purdue. Typical treatment involves therapy sessions in which patients are asked to speak louder, which can also help them speak more clearly.
But not all patients do well in traditional sessions, said Jessica Huber, an associate professor in Purdue's Department of Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences. Some said they couldn't be any louder, but Huber said that changed when they heard background noise similar to the chatter found in a busy restaurant.
"They had an easier time getting louder when I had the noise in the room," Huber said. "Ordinarily, when I asked them to be twice as loud, they would say they couldn't. They couldn't speak 10 decibels louder, but when I turned on the babble noise, they spoke over 10 decibels louder."
Purdue engineers at the speech school and Purdue's Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering developed a voice-activated device that automatically plays background noise through an earpiece when the patient begins speaking. The patient, who wears the earpiece, hears the background noise and is automatically prompted to speak louder.
"They don't realize they're not speaking loud enough, and this helps them speak loud enough," said engineering resources manager Jim Jones. "Every social interaction they have is a little better."
Donna Segrist, who has Parkinson's and tested the device, said the background noise device helped her.
"It sounds just like all the people talking at a restaurant," she said. "It's been very rewarding to use it."
Six patients wore the portable system for eight weeks, and data showed the system prompted Parkinson's patients to speak louder and more clearly.
"Their speech changes significantly," Huber said. "There have been times where I have called patients and they've had the device on and I didn't really recognize them. And these are patients I've known for a long time. This is beneficial also because it trains them in their everyday environment -- in their homes, with their spouses, in their churches, in their social groups."
The approach is based on the Lombard effect, a reflex in which people automatically speak louder in the presence of background sound.
"You go into a loud room at a party and you talk louder without even realizing it," Huber said. "We've all had the experience where the room suddenly gets quiet and you're still shouting but you didn't know you were."
Purdue researchers plan to continue working on the concept with patients at the Rehabilitation Institute of Indianapolis. Further research could determine whether patients continue speaking louder when they are not wearing the device.
Purdue hopes the device can eventually be manufactured and made available to people with Parkinson's, which is a brain disorder that can cause tremors or shaking, movement problems and muffled speech. About 60,000 new cases of Parkinson's are diagnosed every year in the United States, according to the National Parkinson Foundation.
