Monitoring ALS from speech articulation kinematics
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S.I. : ADVANCES IN BIO-INSPIRED INTELLIGENT SYSTEMS
Monitoring ALS from speech articulation kinematics Pedro Gómez1
· Ana R. M. Londral2,3 · Andrés Gómez1 · Daniel Palacios1 · Victoria Rodellar1
Received: 3 January 2018 / Accepted: 11 May 2018 © The Natural Computing Applications Forum 2018
Abstract Patients affected by amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) show specific dysarthria in their speech resulting in specific marks which could be used to detect early symptoms and monitor the evolution of the disease in time. Classically articulation marks have been mainly based on static premises. Articulation kinematics from acoustic correlates may help in producing measurements depending on the dynamic behaviour of speech. Specifically, distribution functions from the absolute kinematic velocity estimated on a simplified articulation model can be used in establishing distances based on information theory concepts between running speech segments from patients and controls. As an example, several cases of ALS were studied longitudinally using this methodology. The study shows that the performance of dynamic articulation quality correlates may be sensitive and robust in tracking illness progress. Conclusions foresee the use of speech as a valuable monitoring methodology for ALS timely neurodegenerative progression. Keywords Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis · Neuromotor diseases · Kullback–Leibler divergence · Speech articulation
1 Introduction Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a neurodegenerative disease hampering human motor function due to progressive degeneration of motor neurons, both from cortical and spinal regions. The neuromuscular systems affected progressively loose motor function to end in total movement
& Pedro Go´mez [email protected] Ana R. M. Londral [email protected] Andre´s Go´mez [email protected] Daniel Palacios [email protected] Victoria Rodellar [email protected] 1
Center for Biomedical Technology, Universidad Polite´cnica de Madrid, Campus de Montegancedo, 28223 Pozuelo De Alarco´n, Madrid, Spain
2
Translational Clinical Physiology Lab, Instituto de Medicina Molecular, University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal
3
Escola Superior de Tecnologia de Setu´bal, Instituto Polite´cnico de Setu´bal, Setu´bal, Portugal
impairment. As a consequence, locomotion, limb movements, breathing and speech are progressively lost. In ALS, speech is affected at different levels, from phonation, to articulation and fluency. These symptoms are known as neuromotor dysarthrias and have been extensively studied during the past years. For a comprehensive review, the interested reader can refer [1, 2]. Although no efficient cure has been found up to now, promising results are being published, which may eventually come to a possible treatment [3]. Speech dysarthria is a symptom produced by ALS in the bulbar region. While the disease symptoms usually start in one region with a spreading effect to other regions, speech may be a good vehicle to provide markers on illness progression, and early warning prior to l
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