5 minute read
Speech Therapy Research Project
We recently spoke with Dr Brooke-Mai Whelan, Lecturer in Speech Pathology from the University of Queensland about an upcoming MND research project she will be conducting.
Dr Whelan said the project concept came about because ‘This last year I’ve done a systematic reviewquite a thorough look at the literature of what’s out there, what are speech pathologists currently doing to support people with MND with speech difficulty other than prescribing AAC devices - and there’s really nothing out there at all. They seem to be a group of people who have been put in the “too hard basket”.’
She added ‘There seemed to be a belief years ago that if we intervened with active rehabilitation that it actually makes their dysarthria or speech impairment worse. I’ve even read that it can assist in the further death of motor neurones which is why people have avoided it. However the physiotherapy literature and even animal model literature indicates that certain levels of exercise in MND can actually be beneficial. So this got me thinking about “well how can we create a tailored treatment program that’s obviously not going to cure the problem, we know that it’s a neurodegenerative condition, a rapidly declining one, but perhaps if we actively intervene it might prolong or preserve the use of natural speech for longer.” So that’s my end goal. That’s what I’d really like to be able to do for people with MND, but that’s a long way away.’
Going into more detail about the project Dr Whelan said ‘This research project is almost like the very first step where we’re utilising digital technology, so acoustic analysis, where a computer can analyse different features of speech and give us this hard scientific evidence. These numbers that indicate changes in speech over time and how those digital profiles relate to what people with MND report. So at this point in the disease my speech sounded like “this”, the computer analysed it to look like “this” numerically and these are the changes in my ability to communicate that I’ve experienced. We want to put all of that together to better understand the decline of speech deterioration in this group because I’ve read in the literature, and certainly when I’ve spoken to people with MND, when they know you’re a Speechie, they ask you two questions, “How long is it going to be before I lose my speech?” and “What can I do to stop losing it?” and we can’t answer those questions.’
Our own Speech Pathologist, Dr Salma Charania (currently taking some personal leave back home in Canada) is also involved in the project. We asked Dr Whelan about her relationship with Salma and she responded ‘Salma was a PhD student here and because she was studying Motor Neurone Disease, she would teach into some of my courses on the topic. That’s how we got to know each other. Salma and I now sit together on an MND collective committee for clinical care. We are currently writing a paper together on respiratory failure in MND and how that impacts on swallowing and speech. We hope to work together for many more years to come, but she’s got to get back to Australia!’
One of the barriers that many people face when wanting to get involved in MND research is their location, as most research projects are located in South-East Queensland, but this project will welcome people from across the State to participate. Dr Whelan told us ‘We do all of the recordings online so that people in rural and remote Queensland can participate if they so choose to and then we look at them over this eight-month period of time. And we see what it looks like on the downhill trajectory and then when we design this treatment obviously we’re hoping to see a reverse pattern of performance where their speech is going to change, or going to plateau rather than see that decline. It’s also an easy study to get involved in.’ Explaining the process for participants a little further, Dr Whelan said ‘there’s not a great deal of participant burden in this particular study. There are many, many time points where we want to collect the data but it’s not really an onerous task for the participants.’
She went on to add ‘All participants in this study will require the ability to still be using their natural speech. So depending on how severe their dysarthria is, or the speech impediment they have, I envisage that each data collection would be between 45 minutes and an hour. The tasks are really simple. It just requires them reading and repeating phrases over and over and we just record them.’
Keep an eye on our social media or speak with your MND Advisor/Support Coordinator about getting involved in this project.
