Conference Proceedings
Automated tongue-twister phrase-based screening for Cerebellar Ataxia using Vocal tract Biomarkers
Bipasha Kashyap, Pubudu N Pathirana, Malcolm Horne, Laura Power, David Szmulewicz
2019 41ST ANNUAL INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE OF THE IEEE ENGINEERING IN MEDICINE AND BIOLOGY SOCIETY (EMBC) | IEEE | Published : 2019
Abstract
Cerebellar Ataxia (CA) is a neurological condition that leads to uncoordinated muscle movements, even affecting the production of speech. Effective biomarkers are necessary to produce an objective decision-making support tool for early diagnosis of CA in non-clinical environments. This paper investigates the reliability and effectiveness of vocal tract acoustic biomarkers for assessing CA speech. These features were tested on a database consisting of 52 clinically rated tongue-twister phrase 'British Constitution' and its 4 consonant-vowel (CV) excerpts /ti/, /ti/', /tu/, /tion/ acquired from 30 ataxic patients and 22 healthy controls. Such a marker could be applied to objectively assess the..
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Awarded by Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health, Melbourne, Australia through the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC)
Funding Acknowledgements
We acknowledge Sarah Milne and Mandy Marriott for their assistance in data collection. This work is supported by the Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health, Melbourne, Australia through the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) GNT1101304 and APP 1129595 and CSIRO Data6l.