Dr Roger Eglin
People with Parkinson’s might regain their confidence communicating thanks to Apps on their mobile phones.
Dr Roger Eglin, of the University of Portsmouth, hopes to develop two mobile phone Apps to enable the thousands of people with Parkinson’s improve their speech and allow them to be better understood by family, friends and healthcare workers.
Dr Eglin, of the university’s Department of Creative Technologies, has been awarded a £35,000 innovation grant from leading research charity Parkinson’s UK to develop the Apps.
Speech problems affect nearly three quarters of the 120,000 people with Parkinson’s in the UK. Problems communicating can also have a profound impact on quality of life, according to research.
Dr Eglin said: “Many people with Parkinson’s already have and use mobile phones, making them a low-cost, simple and effective way for helping people improve their own speech.
“We’ve already developed a basic mobile phone application to improve speech, but it needs to be further improved and tailored specifically for people with Parkinson’s.
“We will be testing our application with people with Parkinson’s at every stage of development to make sure it is effective and easy to use.”
Dr Kieran Breen, Director of Research and Innovation at Parkinson’s UK said: “We’re delighted to be funding Dr Eglin’s new research. Speech problems affect around 70 per cent of people with Parkinson’s. This can make everyday things much more difficult, and can have a profound impact on their quality of life.
“Speech therapy can help, but speech therapists have limited time and resources, so simple mobile phone applications that people can use in their everyday life offer exciting potential to help tackle speech problems.
“This is just the kind of innovative research we’re keen to support.”
Dr Eglin will work with Peter Nolan, Vaughan Powell and Lee Prior from Portsmouth and Julia Johnson and Professor Ray Chaudhuri from King’s College Hospital, London.
They aim to develop two key functions to help people improve their speech: A feedback meter will help people see how loud their speech is compared to background noise and indicate what adjustment is required to be heard properly; and a voice training function to encourage people to speak more loudly, which can make them easier to understand.
Such Apps could also be used by health professionals to monitor progress remotely, making speech therapy cheaper and more accessible for those with Parkinson’s.
Dr Eglin said: “If we’re successful, we hope to develop useful mobile phone based applications which can help people with Parkinson’s who experience speech difficulties – helping them to communicate better with their families and friends and increasing their confidence in social situations.”
The project is expected to last a year.
