# Analyzing changes in parkinsonian speech over time: a diachronic experimental phonetics study

## TL;DR

This study tracks changes in the speech rhythm of actor Alan Alda over time to explore early signs of Parkinson's disease.

## Contribution

The paper introduces a novel approach using web-based longitudinal speech data to detect early Parkinsonian speech changes.

## Key findings

- Speech rhythm alterations in Parkinson's disease can be detected years before clinical diagnosis.
- An abnormal increase in the percentage of vocalic portion (%V) was observed in Alan Alda's speech prior to diagnosis.

## Abstract

In this contribution the use of web resources for the longitudinal study of speech rhythm of a ‘well-known’ person diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, the American actor Alan Alda, is proposed. A corpus of 20 speech samples produced in the period between 1979 and 2021 was collected from the web. A rhythmical analysis was conducted, based on two parameters: the percentage of vocalic portion on the total duration of the utterance (%V) and the VtoV, the mean duration of the interval between two consecutive vowel onset points. The results of this study confirm an early alteration of rhythm in parkinsonian speech, with an abnormal increase of %V, already occurring some years before the clinical diagnosis. The observation of speech rhythm variation can therefore be considered as the basis for the realization of a sustainable and non-invasive procedure in support to early diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease.