Ranking pre-trained speech embeddings in Parkinson's disease detection: Does Wav2Vec 2.0 outperform its 1.0 version across speech modes and languages?

Speech and language technologies are effective tools for identifying the distinct speech changes associated with Parkinson's disease (PD), enabling earlier and more accurate diagnosis. Models leveraging recent advancements in self-supervised speech pretraining, such as Wav2Vec, have demonstrated superior performance over traditional feature extraction methods. While Wav2Vec 2.

Unravelling head tremor mechanisms: insights from speech analysis in essential tremor and cervical dystonia.

Head tremor is a common symptom in both essential tremor (ET) and cervical dystonia (CD). Distinguishing between these two conditions can be challenging in clinical practice, particularly when head tremor is the dominant feature. Our goal was to explore the potential of speech assessment in recognizing the mechanisms of head tremor in patients with ET and CD.

Colour discrimination deficit in REM sleep behavior disorder: an analysis of dopaminergic depletion, cognition, and brain morphology.

Isolated REM sleep behavior disorder (iRBD) is associated with impaired colour discrimination, cognitive deficits and morphological changes. This study evaluates whether colour discrimination deficits in iRBD are mediated by cognitive functions or related to dopaminergic denervation and brain morphology. A sample of 73 patients with iRBD and 77 controls underwent neuropsychological assessment, and colour discrimination assessment using the Farnsworth Munsell 100 Hue Test, DAT-SPECT, and MRI.

Differentiating Essential and Dystonic Head Tremor: Exploring Arm Position Effects.

Background: Head tremor poses diagnostic problems, especially when present as an isolated or predominant symptom.

Objectives: To assess how maneuvers activating upper limb postural tremor can help differentiate head tremor in essential tremor (ET) from dystonic tremor (DT) in cervical dystonia.

Methods: 48 patients with head tremor (25 ET, 23 DT), underwent clinical examination and accelerometric evaluation of head and upper limb tremor during routine tremor-inducing tasks.

Analyzing Wav2Vec 1.0 Embeddings for Cross-Database Parkinson's Disease Detection and Speech Features Extraction.

Advancements in deep learning speech representations have facilitated the effective use of extensive unlabeled speech datasets for Parkinson's disease (PD) modeling with minimal annotated data. This study employs the non-fine-tuned wav2vec 1.0 architecture to develop machine learning models for PD speech diagnosis tasks, such as cross-database classification and regression to predict demographic and articulation characteristics.

Impaired dual-task gait in Parkinson's disease is associated with brain morphology changes.

In Parkinson's disease (PD), impaired gait and cognition affect daily activities, particularly in the more advanced stages of the disease. This study investigated the relationship between gait parameters, cognitive performance, and brain morphology in patients with early untreated PD. 64 drug-naive PD patients and 47 healthy controls (HC) participated in the study.

Beyond timing and step counting in 360° turning-in-place assessment: a scoping review.

Background: Turning in place is a challenging motor task and is used as a brief assessment test of lower limb function and dynamic balance. This review aims to examine how research of instrumented analysis of turning in place is implemented. In addition to reporting the studied population, we covered acquisition systems, turn detection methods, quantitative parameters, and how these parameters are computed.

The relationship between the local dynamic stability of gait to cognitive and physical performance in older adults: A scoping review.

Background: Local dynamic stability (LDS) has become accepted as a gait stability indicator. The deterioration of gait stability is magnified in older adults.

Research Question: What is the current state in the field regarding rthe relationship between LDS and cognitive and/or physical function in older adults?

Methods: A scoping review design was used to search for peer-reviewed literature or conference proceedings published through May 2023 for an association between LDS and cognitive (e.

Essential and dystonic head tremor: More similarities than differences.

Introduction: Head tremor is a common symptom of essential tremor (ET) and cervical dystonia (CD). In clinical practice, it is often difficult to distinguish between these two conditions, especially in cases where head tremor predominates.

Objectives: To investigate which clinical and instrumental methods best differentiate ET and CD in patients with head tremor.

Cortical and subcortical morphometric changes and their relation to cognitive impairment in isolated REM sleep behavior disorder.

Objective: To date, very few studies have focused on structural changes and their association with cognitive performance in isolated REM sleep behaviour disorder (iRBD). Moreover, the results of these studies are inconclusive. This study aims to evaluate differences in the associations between brain morphology and cognitive tests in iRBD and healthy controls.

Speech and gait abnormalities in motor subtypes of de-novo Parkinson's disease.

Aim: To investigate the presence and relationship of temporal speech and gait parameters in patients with postural instability/gait disorder (PIGD) and tremor-dominant (TD) motor subtypes of Parkinson's disease (PD).

Methods: Speech samples and instrumented walkway system assessments were acquired from a total of 60 de-novo PD patients (40 in TD and 20 in PIGD subtype) and 40 matched healthy controls. Objective acoustic vocal assessment of seven distinct speech timing dimensions was related to instrumental gait measures including velocity, cadence, and stride length.

Lower Limb Exoskeleton Sensors: State-of-the-Art.

Due to the ever-increasing proportion of older people in the total population and the growing awareness of the importance of protecting workers against physical overload during long-time hard work, the idea of supporting exoskeletons progressed from high-tech fiction to almost commercialized products within the last six decades. Sensors, as part of the perception layer, play a crucial role in enhancing the functionality of exoskeletons by providing as accurate real-time data as possible to generate reliable input data for the control layer. The result of the processed sensor data is the information about current limb position, movement intension, and needed support.

The timed up & go test sit-to-stand transition: Which signals measured by inertial sensors are a viable route for continuous analysis?

Background: The Timed Up and Go test is a well-known clinical test for assessing of mobility and fall risk. It has been shown that the IMU which use an accelerometer and gyroscope are capable of analysing the quantitative parameters of the sit-to-stand transition.

Research Question: Which signals obtained by the inertial sensors are suitable for continuous Timed Up & Go test sit-to-stand transition analysis?

Methods: In the study we included 29 older adult volunteers and 31 de-novo Parkinson disease (PD) patients.

Instrumental analysis of finger tapping reveals a novel early biomarker of parkinsonism in idiopathic rapid eye movement sleep behaviour disorder.

Background: Idiopathic rapid eye movement sleep behaviour (iRBD) is considered as a risk factor for Parkinson's disease (PD) development. Evaluation of repetitive movements with finger tapping, which serves as a principal task to measure the extent of bradykinesia in PD, may undercover potential PD patients. The aim of this study was to explore whether finger tapping abnormalities, evaluated with a 3D motion capture system, are already present in RBD patients.

Agreement between the GAITRite System and the Wearable Sensor BTS G-Walk for measurement of gait parameters in healthy adults and Parkinson's disease patients.

Background: Nowadays, the most widely used types of wearable sensors in gait analysis are inertial sensors. The aim of the study was to assess the agreement between two different systems for measuring gait parameters (inertial sensor vs. electronic walkway) on healthy control subjects (HC) and patients with Parkinson's disease (PD).

Relations of non-motor symptoms and dopamine transporter binding in REM sleep behavior disorder.

The aim of this study was to evaluate associations of motor and non-motor symptoms with dopamine transporter binding in prodromal stage of synucleinopathies. We examined 74 patients with idiopathic REM sleep behavior disorder (RBD), which is a prodromal synucleinopathy, and 39 controls using Movement Disorders Society-Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale (MDS-UPDRS), Montreal Cognitive Assessment, University of Pennsylvania Smell Identification Test (UPSIT), Farnsworth-Munsell 100 hue test, orthostatic test, Scales for Outcomes in PD-Autonomic, Beck depression inventory-II, State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, and video-polysomnography. Electromyographic muscle activity during REM sleep was quantified according to Sleep Innsbruck-Barcelona criteria.

Reshaping cortical activity with subthalamic stimulation in Parkinson's disease during finger tapping and gait mapped by near infrared spectroscopy.

Exploration of motor cortex activity is essential to understanding the pathophysiology in Parkinson's Disease (PD), but only simple motor tasks can be investigated using a fMRI or PET. We aim to investigate the cortical activity of PD patients during a complex motor task (gait) to verify the impact of deep brain stimulation in the subthalamic nucleus (DBS-STN) by using Near-Infrared-Spectroscopy (NIRS). NIRS is a neuroimaging method of brain cortical activity using low-energy optical radiation to detect local changes in (de)oxyhemoglobin concentration.

Extended Timed Up & Go test: Is walking forward and returning back to the chair equivalent gait?

The Timed Up & Go test (TUG) is functional test and is a part of routine clinical examinations. The instrumented Timed Up & Go test enables its segmentation to sub-tasks: sit-to-stand, walking forward, turning, walking back, stand-to-sit, and consequently the computation of task-specific parameters and sub-tasks separately. However, there are no data on whether walking forward parameters differ from the walking back parameters.

Comparative analysis of speech impairment and upper limb motor dysfunction in Parkinson's disease.

It is currently unknown whether speech and limb motor effectors in Parkinson's disease (PD) are controlled by similar underlying brain processes. Based on computerized objective analysis, the aim of this study was to evaluate potential correlation between speech and mechanical tests of upper limb motor function. Speech and upper limb motor tests were performed in 22 PD patients and 22 healthy controls.

Tests of manual dexterity and speed in Parkinson's disease: Not all measure the same.

Introduction: Timed performance tests were introduced to overcome the disadvantages of subjective evaluation of bradykinesia in Parkinson's disease (PD). We aimed to verify their discriminative properties and compare them with the motion capture analysis of finger tapping.

Methods: We included 22 PD patients (10 M, 12 F), mean age 64 (range 48-82) yrs, Hoehn & Yahr stage 2 (1-2.