Spastic dysarthria affects speech by impairing muscle control, causing problems with pronunciation, tone, and breathing. It can be caused by neurological problems or other conditions and can also affect swallowing. Treatment involves speech therapy, but some patients may require assistive devices for communication.
Spastic dysarthria is a medical condition that negatively affects a person’s ability to speak. Those with this condition have trouble properly controlling one or more of the muscles used while speaking. They may have trouble pronouncing consonants correctly, pause irregularly when speaking, speak monotonously, or breathe heavily through their nose while speaking. In severe cases, a person may have trouble pronouncing vowels even in words.
People with spastic dysarthria experience one or more of the common speech-language symptoms of the disorder. Exactly how a person’s speech is affected by spastic dysarthria depends entirely on the source of the condition and the severity of the originating health problems. Most patients suffer from more than one speech impediment, which can include problems with voice volume, pitch, tone, and overall vocal quality.
The ailment can be caused by one of many other medical problems. Those who have cerebral palsy may also have spastic dysarthria, due to the neurological problems caused by cerebral palsy. Other neurological problems could be the source of the condition, such as a brain tumor or severe head injury. Additionally, other conditions that can lead to the disorder include Tay-Sachs disease, hypothermia damage, and Lyme disease.
Language skills aren’t the only bodily function that could be affected by spastic dysarthria. Several muscle groups are affected by the condition, including the muscles of the tongue, lips, jaw and soft palate. The condition could affect the person’s ability to breathe properly and to swallow, affecting how the person eats and drinks.
Treatment of spastic dysarthria is usually managed by a speech therapist. The speech therapist must first determine what effects the condition has on a person’s muscle groups. Some exercises may be performed by the patient, under the direction of the speech therapist, to help the patient strengthen the affected muscle groups and gain more control of his speech. Changing the way a person uses their muscles to speak is another technique speech therapists use to help a patient gain more vocal control.
Some patients, even with speech therapy, cannot improve their speech skills. Patients who cannot overcome spastic dysarthria enough to be intelligible require the assistance of other devices so they can communicate effectively with others. These devices could include text-based phones or a speech synthesizer like the one used by famed scientist Stephen Hawking.
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