Relation between oral diadochokinesis and disease severity in Iranian patients with idiopathic Parkinson's disease

Parkinson’s Disease(PD) is the most common movement disorder in the world that causes Hpokinetic dysarthria in patients.80-90% of these patients have speech and language disorders. Diadochokinesis(DDK) test is one of the best and most common tools to evaluate neurological disorder speeches of any type and any severity. The purpose of this research is to configurate relation of oral DDK and disease severity. in this cross sectional, analytical and noninterventional study 27 PD patients were chosen from clients of movement disorder clinic of neurology ward of Rasool Akram educational and treating center using convenience sampling and under inclusion criteria conditions., Mean of monosyllable diado test is evaluated by speech and language pathologist and evaluation of disease severity is done by neurologist using UPDRS-III. Diado of 21 age-sex matched group was assessed. Pearson and Spearman correlation coefficient and independent sample t-test are used to analyz data. PD patients showed significantly slower diado(P<0.001). no significant relation is found between DDK and disease severity (rs=0.360, P=.0.065) There is positive correlation between toe tapping part of UPDRS and DDK(rs=0.412,P=0.033).Sexuality doesn’t affect the results. this study shows DDK rate Parkinson patients is lower compare to normal people. There is no correlation between mean monosyllable DDK and disease severity(based on UPDRS-III). Sexuality doesn’t affect the mean DDK of patients.