Les Beaux-midis : The Speech Movement Disorder and its Rehabilitation in Parkinson ’s Disease using Augmented Visual Feedback

Conférencière : Elaine Kearney,  Ph.D. Candidate

Speech-Language Pathology, University of Toronto

Résumé
Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disease affecting voluntary movement, including speech movements. 45% of individuals with PD experience difficulties with articulation, leading to reduced intelligibility. Understanding the articulatory disorder in PD and the existing treatment options for this disorder are, however, limited. This talk describes a series of studies conducted to (1) identify speech movement targets for rehabilitation in PD; (2) evaluate the effectiveness of augmented visual feedback therapies for motor rehabilitation in PD; and (3) establish the preliminary efficacy of a novel speech therapy using game-based visual feedback in PD.

Mini bio
Elaine Kearney is a PhD candidate in the department of Speech-Language Pathology at the University of Toronto under the supervision of Dr. Yana Yunusova. Elaine completed her clinical program in Speech and Language Therapy (BSc.) at the University College Cork, Ireland (2011). Her doctoral work focuses on understanding the speech movement disorder in Parkinson’s disease (PD) in relation to speech intelligibility, and developing game-based visual feedback for speech therapy in PD.