Arla Good, PhD • Esztella Vezer, MA • Frank A. Russo, PhD • Sean Gilmore, PhD | Toronto Metropolitan University
Elizabeth Earle | York University
Steven Livingstone, PhD | Ontario Tech University, University of Otago
Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disease leading to motor impairments and dystonia across diverse muscle groups including vocal muscles. The vocal production challenges associated with PD have received considerably less research attention than the primary gross motor symptoms of the disease despite having a substantial effect on quality of life. Increasingly, people living with PD are discovering group singing as an asset-based approach to community building that is purported to strengthen vocal muscles and improve vocal quality.
This study investigated the impact of community choir on vocal production in people living with PD across two sites. Prior to and immediately following a 12-week community choir at each site, vocal testing included a range of vocal-acoustic measures, including lowest and highest achievable pitch, duration of phonation, loudness, jitter, and shimmer.
Results showed that group singing significantly improved some, though not all, measures of vocal production. Group singing improved lowest pitch (both groups), duration (both groups), intensity (one group), and jitter (one group) and shimmer (both groups). These findings support community choir as a feasible and scalable complementary approach to managing vocal production challenges associated with PD.
Publications:
Conferences:
Good A., Vezer, E., Earle E., Gilmore, S., Russo, F. A. (2021, November). Effects of Group Singing on Vocal Production in Individuals with Parkinson’s Disease. Poster at Neuromusic Conference. McMaster Institute for Music and the Mind, Hamilton, ON.
Ⓒ 2020-2024, The SingWell Project