Charlotte Purcell, MS, CFY-SLP, has submitted and been accepted to present her poster to the International Association of Logopedics and Phoniatrics, World Congress to be held in Dublin, Ireland in August. Her presentation is entitled “Effect of LSVT-Loud on dysarthria and apraxia of speech secondary to stroke.”
Ms. Purcell, a speech-language pathologist, joined Siskin Hospital’s Speech Therapy Services in March. Her presentation is based on a year-and-a-half treatment study to examine the use of the Lee Silverman Voice Treatment (LSVT-Loud) protocol for other types of motor speech disorders. LSVT-Loud is a speech therapy modality for disorders affecting voice quality, pitch, and loudness in individuals with Parkinson’s Disease.
The study sought to determine whether an intensive protocol related to the principles of neuroplasticity and motor learning would be effective with those who are experiencing dysarthria or apraxia. Dysarthria is a motor impairment voice disorder caused by muscle weakness and characterized by slurred or slow speech that can be difficult to understand. Apraxia, a motor programming voice disorder, occurs when the messages from the brain to the mouth are disrupted, and the person cannot move his or her lips or tongue to the right place to say sounds correctly, even though the muscles are not weak.
“This study gives us insight as to whether LSVT protocols can be applied to dysarthria and apraxia or other types of motor speech in general,” said Ms. Pucell.