Tabea Thies | Universität zu Köln (original) (raw)
Papers by Tabea Thies
Parkinsonism & Related Disorders
HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), Oct 21, 2021
BackgroundSpeech impairment is already present on the acoustic level in speakers with isolated ra... more BackgroundSpeech impairment is already present on the acoustic level in speakers with isolated rapid eye movement sleep behavior disorder (iRBD). The aim of this study was to determine whether speech changes are already present on the articulatory level and if how these differ from healthy control speakers and speakers with Parkinson’s disease (PD).MethodsKinematic data were collected from 68 age and sex-matched subjects: healthy control speakers (n=23), patients with iRBD (n=22), and patients with PD (n=23). All participants were recorded with electromagnetic articulography (AG 501) to capture articulatory movements of the lower lip, the tongue tip and the tongue body. Movement amplitudes, durations and average speeds were calculated per articulator. In addition, naïve listeners rated the intelligibility of the speech sampled produced by the participants.ResultsThe results of the production experiment indicate changes between the control and the iRBD group as well as between the iR...
PLOS ONE
Objective Parkinson’s Disease (PD) is associated with both motor and non-motor problems, such as ... more Objective Parkinson’s Disease (PD) is associated with both motor and non-motor problems, such as cognitive impairment. Particular focus in this area has been on the relationship between language impairment and decline in other cognitive functions, with the literature currently inconclusive on how the nature and degree of language impairment relate to cognition or other measures of disease severity. In addition, little information is available on how language problems identified in experimental task set-ups relate to competency in self-generated language paradigms such as picture description, monologues or conversations. This study aimed to inform clinical management of language impairment in PD by exploring (1) language performance across a range of experimental as well as self-generated language tasks, (2) how the relationship between these two aspects might be affected by the nature of the cognitive and language assessment; and (3) to what degree performance can be predicted acros...
18th Biennial Conference of the International Clinical Phonetics and Linguistics Association, Jun 24, 2021
The presence of language difficulties in Parkinson's Disease (PD) is increasingly recognised.... more The presence of language difficulties in Parkinson's Disease (PD) is increasingly recognised. Less is known about the exact manifestation of these problems, their relationship to other cognitive domains, and how they vary across different task complexities. Particularly the latter is important in order to establish sensitive and clinically useful assessment procedures, which can then serve as the basis for developing effective treatment strategies. This study aimed to contribute to this knowledge base by investigating language performance in people with PD (PwPD) across a number of speaking tasks and to correlate this performance with cognitive skills. 22 PwPD and 22 healthy matched control participants performed a range of executive function and linguistic tasks. Four participants in each group presented with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), the rest were cognitively healthy. Language tasks ranged from complex grammar tasks to less structured sentence generation and picture description tasks. The investigation focused on grammatical accuracy and complexity in all three tasks, as well as speech characteristics (sentence generation and picture description) and information content (picture description only). Results indicated that PwPD produced more grammatical errors than their healthy controls across all language tasks. No significant differences were evident for other parameters such as grammatical complexity, false starts, pauses, concepts, etc. Error rate in the complex grammar was linked to set shifting ability whereas performance in the other tasks was independent of cognition. Syntactic performance did not correlate across the three tasks, indicating that each task presented with its own difficulties and error patterns. Our study highlights that language problems can occur at early stages of PD before speech or cognitive problems arise. In addition, the data demonstrate that at this stage only highly complex grammatical tasks depend on cognitive performance, whereas more natural language production appears to be decoupled from this skill. The findings that result from structured language tests cannot predict day to day communication performance highlighting that clinicians should focus on functional assessment in order to provide early effective intervention
Patients with idiopathic parkinsonism suffer from a neurodegenerative disorder of the nervous sys... more Patients with idiopathic parkinsonism suffer from a neurodegenerative disorder of the nervous system. Due to a progressive loss of dopaminergic cells in the substantia nigra patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD) develop problems with motor and non-motor functions. On the motor level the dysfunctions defect the voluntary movements and lead to symptoms like: rigidity, resting tremor and bradykinesia [1]. On the level of cognition PD patients have problems with the executive functions, cognitive flexibility, working memory and control of attention [2]. Furthermore, the speech system gets affected which often leads to dysarthric speech. This hypokinetic dysarthria impacts the phonation, articulation and the respiratory system. The speech deficits include monoloudness, monopitch, reduced stress, imprecise articulation, variability of speech rate, disfluencies and voice tremor [3, 4, 5].PD affects communication as well as other related functions such as cognition, but complex prosodic as...
Background: Language difficulties are increasingly reported in PD. However, there are contradicto... more Background: Language difficulties are increasingly reported in PD. However, there are contradictory reports on how they relate to motor and cognitive impairment. In addition, the link between various language deficits or the same deficits across task modalities is not well understood. This lack of understanding impacts on clinicians’ ability to assess and effectively treat language impairment in PD. Our study therefore aimed to investigate language performance across a number of task structures and correlate this performance with cognitive skills, as well as motor and speech performance.
Languages, 2022
This study aims to explore the effects of healthy aging and Parkinson’s disease on speech motor p... more This study aims to explore the effects of healthy aging and Parkinson’s disease on speech motor performance. One area of speech production which requires fine speech motor control is prominence marking. Therefore, strategies of prominence marking of three speaker groups with four speakers each were investigated: younger speakers, older speakers, and speakers with Parkinson’s disease (PD). Acoustic and articulatory data were collected. Speech data were analyzed focusing on prominence-related adjustments of vowel production and tongue body movements in the temporal and spatial domain. Longer durations, varying initiation of the tongue movements and smaller vowel sizes in older speakers and in speakers with PD were found compared to younger speakers. The data indicate further that all speaker groups mark prominence by changing relevant parameters in the vowel articulation; however, strategies seem to differ between the groups: (i) in the temporal domain, articulatory movement durations...
Brain Sciences
The new essential tremor (ET) classification defined ET-plus (ET-p) as an ET subgroup with additi... more The new essential tremor (ET) classification defined ET-plus (ET-p) as an ET subgroup with additional neurological signs besides action tremor. While deep brain stimulation (DBS) is effective in ET, there are no studies specifically addressing DBS effects in ET-p. 44 patients with medication-refractory ET and thalamic/subthalamic DBS implanted at our center were postoperatively classified into ET and ET-p according to preoperative documentation. Tremor suppression with DBS (stimulation ON vs. preoperative baseline and vs. stimulation OFF), measured via the Fahn–Tolosa–Marin tremor rating scale (TRS), stimulation parameters, and the location of active contacts were compared between patients classified as ET and ET-p. TRS scores at baseline were higher in ET-p. ET-p patients showed comparable tremor reduction as patients with ET, albeit higher stimulation parameters were needed in ET-p. Active electrode contacts were located more dorsally in ET-p of uncertain reason. Our data show tha...
Thalamic deep brain stimulation (DBS) is an effective treatment for patients with medically refra... more Thalamic deep brain stimulation (DBS) is an effective treatment for patients with medically refractory essential tremor. However, stimulation-induced side-effects, especially stimulation-induced dysarthria (SID), interfere severely with quality of life and postoperative tremor control. Here, we present a functional and structural network approach to SID to gain insights into the associated brain areas and to predict stimulation-induced worsening of intelligibility. Monopolar reviews were conducted in 14 essential tremor patients with bilateral thalamic DBS by increasing the stimulation amplitude contact-wise until (i) a maximum of 10mA, (ii) the occurrence of intolerable side effects, or (iii) the onset of SID. Speech assessments included intelligibility ratings when reading a German standard text and a fast syllable repetition task. To detect brain areas associated with SID, a functional connectivity difference image of volumes of tissue activated (VTAs) causing SID, and VTAs not c...
Parkinsonism & Related Disorders
HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), Oct 21, 2021
BackgroundSpeech impairment is already present on the acoustic level in speakers with isolated ra... more BackgroundSpeech impairment is already present on the acoustic level in speakers with isolated rapid eye movement sleep behavior disorder (iRBD). The aim of this study was to determine whether speech changes are already present on the articulatory level and if how these differ from healthy control speakers and speakers with Parkinson’s disease (PD).MethodsKinematic data were collected from 68 age and sex-matched subjects: healthy control speakers (n=23), patients with iRBD (n=22), and patients with PD (n=23). All participants were recorded with electromagnetic articulography (AG 501) to capture articulatory movements of the lower lip, the tongue tip and the tongue body. Movement amplitudes, durations and average speeds were calculated per articulator. In addition, naïve listeners rated the intelligibility of the speech sampled produced by the participants.ResultsThe results of the production experiment indicate changes between the control and the iRBD group as well as between the iR...
PLOS ONE
Objective Parkinson’s Disease (PD) is associated with both motor and non-motor problems, such as ... more Objective Parkinson’s Disease (PD) is associated with both motor and non-motor problems, such as cognitive impairment. Particular focus in this area has been on the relationship between language impairment and decline in other cognitive functions, with the literature currently inconclusive on how the nature and degree of language impairment relate to cognition or other measures of disease severity. In addition, little information is available on how language problems identified in experimental task set-ups relate to competency in self-generated language paradigms such as picture description, monologues or conversations. This study aimed to inform clinical management of language impairment in PD by exploring (1) language performance across a range of experimental as well as self-generated language tasks, (2) how the relationship between these two aspects might be affected by the nature of the cognitive and language assessment; and (3) to what degree performance can be predicted acros...
18th Biennial Conference of the International Clinical Phonetics and Linguistics Association, Jun 24, 2021
The presence of language difficulties in Parkinson's Disease (PD) is increasingly recognised.... more The presence of language difficulties in Parkinson's Disease (PD) is increasingly recognised. Less is known about the exact manifestation of these problems, their relationship to other cognitive domains, and how they vary across different task complexities. Particularly the latter is important in order to establish sensitive and clinically useful assessment procedures, which can then serve as the basis for developing effective treatment strategies. This study aimed to contribute to this knowledge base by investigating language performance in people with PD (PwPD) across a number of speaking tasks and to correlate this performance with cognitive skills. 22 PwPD and 22 healthy matched control participants performed a range of executive function and linguistic tasks. Four participants in each group presented with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), the rest were cognitively healthy. Language tasks ranged from complex grammar tasks to less structured sentence generation and picture description tasks. The investigation focused on grammatical accuracy and complexity in all three tasks, as well as speech characteristics (sentence generation and picture description) and information content (picture description only). Results indicated that PwPD produced more grammatical errors than their healthy controls across all language tasks. No significant differences were evident for other parameters such as grammatical complexity, false starts, pauses, concepts, etc. Error rate in the complex grammar was linked to set shifting ability whereas performance in the other tasks was independent of cognition. Syntactic performance did not correlate across the three tasks, indicating that each task presented with its own difficulties and error patterns. Our study highlights that language problems can occur at early stages of PD before speech or cognitive problems arise. In addition, the data demonstrate that at this stage only highly complex grammatical tasks depend on cognitive performance, whereas more natural language production appears to be decoupled from this skill. The findings that result from structured language tests cannot predict day to day communication performance highlighting that clinicians should focus on functional assessment in order to provide early effective intervention
Patients with idiopathic parkinsonism suffer from a neurodegenerative disorder of the nervous sys... more Patients with idiopathic parkinsonism suffer from a neurodegenerative disorder of the nervous system. Due to a progressive loss of dopaminergic cells in the substantia nigra patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD) develop problems with motor and non-motor functions. On the motor level the dysfunctions defect the voluntary movements and lead to symptoms like: rigidity, resting tremor and bradykinesia [1]. On the level of cognition PD patients have problems with the executive functions, cognitive flexibility, working memory and control of attention [2]. Furthermore, the speech system gets affected which often leads to dysarthric speech. This hypokinetic dysarthria impacts the phonation, articulation and the respiratory system. The speech deficits include monoloudness, monopitch, reduced stress, imprecise articulation, variability of speech rate, disfluencies and voice tremor [3, 4, 5].PD affects communication as well as other related functions such as cognition, but complex prosodic as...
Background: Language difficulties are increasingly reported in PD. However, there are contradicto... more Background: Language difficulties are increasingly reported in PD. However, there are contradictory reports on how they relate to motor and cognitive impairment. In addition, the link between various language deficits or the same deficits across task modalities is not well understood. This lack of understanding impacts on clinicians’ ability to assess and effectively treat language impairment in PD. Our study therefore aimed to investigate language performance across a number of task structures and correlate this performance with cognitive skills, as well as motor and speech performance.
Languages, 2022
This study aims to explore the effects of healthy aging and Parkinson’s disease on speech motor p... more This study aims to explore the effects of healthy aging and Parkinson’s disease on speech motor performance. One area of speech production which requires fine speech motor control is prominence marking. Therefore, strategies of prominence marking of three speaker groups with four speakers each were investigated: younger speakers, older speakers, and speakers with Parkinson’s disease (PD). Acoustic and articulatory data were collected. Speech data were analyzed focusing on prominence-related adjustments of vowel production and tongue body movements in the temporal and spatial domain. Longer durations, varying initiation of the tongue movements and smaller vowel sizes in older speakers and in speakers with PD were found compared to younger speakers. The data indicate further that all speaker groups mark prominence by changing relevant parameters in the vowel articulation; however, strategies seem to differ between the groups: (i) in the temporal domain, articulatory movement durations...
Brain Sciences
The new essential tremor (ET) classification defined ET-plus (ET-p) as an ET subgroup with additi... more The new essential tremor (ET) classification defined ET-plus (ET-p) as an ET subgroup with additional neurological signs besides action tremor. While deep brain stimulation (DBS) is effective in ET, there are no studies specifically addressing DBS effects in ET-p. 44 patients with medication-refractory ET and thalamic/subthalamic DBS implanted at our center were postoperatively classified into ET and ET-p according to preoperative documentation. Tremor suppression with DBS (stimulation ON vs. preoperative baseline and vs. stimulation OFF), measured via the Fahn–Tolosa–Marin tremor rating scale (TRS), stimulation parameters, and the location of active contacts were compared between patients classified as ET and ET-p. TRS scores at baseline were higher in ET-p. ET-p patients showed comparable tremor reduction as patients with ET, albeit higher stimulation parameters were needed in ET-p. Active electrode contacts were located more dorsally in ET-p of uncertain reason. Our data show tha...
Thalamic deep brain stimulation (DBS) is an effective treatment for patients with medically refra... more Thalamic deep brain stimulation (DBS) is an effective treatment for patients with medically refractory essential tremor. However, stimulation-induced side-effects, especially stimulation-induced dysarthria (SID), interfere severely with quality of life and postoperative tremor control. Here, we present a functional and structural network approach to SID to gain insights into the associated brain areas and to predict stimulation-induced worsening of intelligibility. Monopolar reviews were conducted in 14 essential tremor patients with bilateral thalamic DBS by increasing the stimulation amplitude contact-wise until (i) a maximum of 10mA, (ii) the occurrence of intolerable side effects, or (iii) the onset of SID. Speech assessments included intelligibility ratings when reading a German standard text and a fast syllable repetition task. To detect brain areas associated with SID, a functional connectivity difference image of volumes of tissue activated (VTAs) causing SID, and VTAs not c...