Abstract

OBJECTIVES Repetitive speech phenomena are morphologically heterogeneous iterations of speech which have been described in several neurological disorders such as vascular dementia, progressive supranuclear palsy, Wilson's disease, and Parkinson's disease, and which are presently only poorly understood. The present, prospective study investigated repetitive speech phenomena in Parkinson's disease to describe their morphology, assess their prevalence, and to establish their relation with neuropsychological and clinical background data.

METHODS Twenty four patients with advanced Parkinson's disease and 29 subjects with mid-stage, stable idiopathic disease were screened for appearance, forms, and frequency of repetitive speech phenomena, and underwent a neuropsychological screening procedure comprising tests of general mental functioning, divergent thinking and memory. Patients with advanced Parkinson's disease had a significantly higher disease impairment, longer disease duration, and an unstable motor response to levodopa with frequent on-off fluctuations. Both groups were well matched as to their demographical, clinical, and cognitive background. Perceptual speech evaluation was used to count and differentiate forms of repetitive speech phenomena in different speech tasks. To compare the effect of the motor state, the appearance of repetitive speech phenomena was also assessed in a subgroup of patients with advanced Parkinson's disease during the on versus the off state.

RESULTS Speech repetitions emerged mainly in two variants, one hyperfluent, formally resembling palilalia, and one dysfluent, stuttering-like. Both forms were present in each patient producing repetitive speech phenomena. The repetitive speech phenomena appeared in 15 patients (28.3 %), 13 of whom belonged to the advanced disease group, indicating a significant preponderance of repetitive speech phenomena in patients with a long term, fluctuating disease course. Repetitive speech phenomena appeared with almost equal frequency during the on and the off state of patients with advanced Parkinson's disease. Their distribution among different variants of speech was disproportional, with effort demanding speech tasks producing a significantly higher number of repetitive speech phenomena over semiautomatic forms of speech.

CONCLUSIONS In idiopathic Parkinson's disease repetitive speech phenomena seem to emerge predominantly in a subgroup of patients with advanced disease impairment; manifest dementia is not a necessary prerequisite. They seem to represent a deficit of motor speech control; however, linguistic factors may also contribute to their generation. It is suggested that repetitions of speech in Parkinson's disease represent a distinctive speech disorder, which is caused by changes related to the progression of Parkinson's disease.