Diagnosed with PD for over 4 years, I am finding more and more difficult to articulate speech as if am loosing fine control over my mouth muscles coupled with short breath.
I wonder if any body has this problem?.
The following article seems to indicate that current PD medications such as l-dopa and DBS surgery do not benefit speech.

http://aune.lpl.univ-aix.fr/~fulltext/3022.pdf

Imad

The short breath is because your muscles are tight and are not letting enough air through. You need to breathe from your abdomen like a singer. Speech therapy will help a lot. Lee Silverman Voice Therapy is specifically for PWP. Even though the emphasis of LSVT is for helping a quiet voice, it helps all speech problems in PWP.

Exercise is at least as important if not more important than taking meds in PD. LSVT will show you how to exercise the muscles used for speech.

Problems with speech and articulation are part of PD, to my understanding, and our medications make this variable. DBS gains reportedly can come at a loss where this is concerned, but not to all.

Singing is something that we can all do, costs little unless we prefer to sing along to tracks on an expensive player. It has the benefit of allowing us to choose things we like, and the disbenefit of perhaps annoying our families. But we can always wait until no one is around.......

The kind of abdominal breathing used in thing like ChiKung and Tai Chi are helpful but not specific enough.

I have these issues, sometimes I am runaway fluent and cannot stop talking, other times my voice is hesitant an soft, and articulation is poor. But not too bad yet. When I am like this it is hard for me to talk at all.

An observation that comes partly from pre-PD and partly from watching what happens. Like most of us I was tested for all sorts of things prior to PD, one of those things was lung function. I was put into this thing that resembled a bubble car (remember them!) a chamber that was measurably pressurized, and I had to do all sorts of different breathing patterns. The person who tested me was very baffled, because all my lung functions came within the normal range, I was breathing deep enougn, I was getting enough oxygen in. What puzzled her was why my out breath was so slow. We discussed this for a while, I had noticed that often when I got 'out of breath' it wasn't because I wasn't breathing in enough, but more that I needed to stop and just breath out, sometime almost blowing out, just for a short time.

As time has gone on I have become convinced that this is linked to speech, that a weak out breath is one of the causes of poor speech, and different to articulation. There are breathing exercises that put emphasis on the out breath, and I know you are interested in alternatives. Some forms of meditation also require a focus on the out breath. Perhaps something like this might help - always supposing that my theory has some substance! My justification for it is that while pwp often complain of a tight chest, they do not seem to complain of being out of breath. Combined with effective speech being linked to the out breath anyway........... well it makes a kind of logical sense to me.....

Articulation is another matter though, med levels or maybe brain dopa levels and the way they fluctuate...? This might also include overmedication....

This may be helpful or not, at the moment words are flowing, but through my hands not my mouth! I wonder whether other people have this too, a wonderful but hyperactive mental fluency with words, at the same time as feeling as if struck dumb.........

Lindy

Lee Silverman Voice Therapy is a good place to start when voice problems begin. http://www.lsvtglobal.com/

The first indication that voice involvement is beginning is lowered volume. People may have to ask you to repeat what you say or say that they cannot hear you. LSVT tells you to always speak loudly.

And when the muscles around the larynx are involved, so are the muscles hat help you swallow. Choking is a common hazard for advancinig PWP.

Singing is good therapy for your voice, also. And if you cannot carry a tune in a bucket, sing in t he shower instead! lol
Peggy