Abductor Spastic Dysphonia, Adductor Spasmodic Dysphonia, Laryngeal Dystonia
Conditions
Keywords
Adductor Spasmodic Dysphonia, Abductor Spastic Dysphonia, Laryngeal Dystonia, Vibtro-tactile stimulation
Brief summary
The general aim of the research is to provide scientific evidence that vibro-tactile stimulation (VTS) represents a non-invasive form of neuromodulation that can induce measurable improvements in the speech of patients with laryngeal dystonia (LD) - also called spasmodic dysphonia (SD).
Interventions
DEVICEvibro-tactile stimulation (VTS)
To apply vibro-tactile stimulation, participants will use a wearable device. It contains two vibratory motors (Precision MicrodrivesTM, Model 307 - 100) that are low-voltage (\ 1V), non-invasive and will be located approximately above the lateral portions of the thyroid cartilage. For this protocol, they vibrate at frequencies between 40 - 100 Hz (i.e., 100 times per second
Sponsors
University of Minnesota
Study design
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Intervention model
CROSSOVER
Primary purpose
TREATMENT
Masking
NONE
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
ALL
Age
18 Years to No maximum
Healthy volunteers
No
Inclusion criteria
* 18 years of age or older * Confirmed diagnosis of adductor or abductor LD for a minimum of 6 months.
Exclusion criteria
* Regular intake of benzodiazepines * Cognitive impairment: score \< 27 on the Mini-mental State Examination (MMSE). * Identify with a neurological or musculoskeletal impairment affecting speech motor function. These impairments may include a form of: Dyskinesia, Dystonia other than LD, Essential Tremor, Huntington's Disease, Multiple System Atrophy, Muscle Tension Dysphonia, Parkinsonism, Progressive Supranuclear Palsy, Spasticity, Intracranial Neoplasm (brain tumor), Spinal Neoplasm, Cerebrovascular Accident (Stroke), Mild Traumatic Brain Injury, Intracranial Hemorrhage, Multiple Sclerosis. * Non-English speaker. We will not enroll people who cannot speak English, because the voice assessment procedures (Test sentences, CAPE\_V clinical rating) have only been validated for English speakers at this point. * Pregnant people. We will not enroll pregnant people as the device used in this study is investigational.
Design outcomes
Primary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Change in perceived speech effort (PSE) | 24 months | Speaker will assess effort themselves and assign an score (range: 0-10 with a score of '10' indicating most severe effort) |
| Change in smoothed cepstral peak prominence (CPPS) | 24 months | CPPS provides a measure of the strength of the fundamental frequency within background aperiodicity (physical unit is dB) |
| Change in speech quality vector (SQV) (%) | 24 months | A derived measure designed to understand if a participant's voice symptom improvement occurs across objective (CPPS) and subjective measures of speech (PSE). It is based on the relative change between two time points |
Countries
United States
Outcome results
None listed