Objective To observe the clinical effect when Lee Silverman voice therapy (LSVT) is used to treat stroke survivors with dysarthria. Methods Forty-nine stroke survivors with dysarthria were randomly divided into a control group (n=25) and a treatment group (n=24). The control group received conventional treatment, while the treatment group received daily one-hour sessions of LSVT, 4 times per week for 4 weeks. Before and after the treatment, both groups were given a speech intelligibility (SI) test, a Frenchay dysarthria assessment (FDA), and acoustic analysis including intensity, pitch, triangular vowel space area (tVSA), vowel articulation index (VAI), and formant centralization ratio (FCR). Their maximum phonation time (MPT) was measured and a voice handicap index (VHI) was assigned. Results Before and after treatment, there were significant differences in VHI observed in the observation group, as well as significant differences in their average SI, FDA, MPT, tVSA, VAI and FCR values. In the control group the significant changes were limited to the VAI, FDA, MPT and FCR measurements. However, after the intervention, no significant differences were found between the two groups in VAI, nor in their SI, FDA, VHI, MPT, intensity, pitch, tVSA and FCR scores. Conclusions LSVT has similar therapeutic effects to conventional treatment in relieving voice impairment, improving speech intelligibility, improving the motor functioning of articulation organs and improving the articulation accuracy of stroke survivors with dysarthria. Therefore, it is worthy of clinical application. |