clhs sciblog

One of the affects of Parkinson’s disease is a speech problem.  People with Parkinson’s tend to speak very quietly and sometimes unclearly.  One attempt to help was speech therapy sessions.  However, after the sessions the patients would forget to speak louder.  Jessica Huber found a better solution to this problem.   Huber told her patients to talk while the sound of a large group of people talking was played.  The result was that the patients did speak louder.  This background noise causes the Lombard effect to take place.  This is a reaction in which people automatically begin to speak loud because of background noise.  Huber developed a device that would use this background noise to help the patients.  A sensor placed on the back of the neck detects whenever the person speaks.  When the person speaks the background noise automatically plays, making the person speak louder.

I found this article to be very interesting.  This new device could help many people with their speech problems, weather they have Parkinson’s or any other type of disease that may cause speech problems.  This will definitely help those who suffer from Parkinson’s and their families.

Go to   http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/08/090825151006.htm   for more information.