A Systematic Review of Measures of Dysarthria Severity in Stroke Patients.

OBJECTIVE

To define methods to measure dysarthria due to stroke and guide physicians in delineating a diagnostic protocol using the best current strategies.

DESIGN

Systematic review.

LITERATURE SURVEY: A search was conducted on PubMed, EMBASE, the Cochrane Library, and Web of Science to identify measurement methods for dysarthria severity in adults after stroke.

METHODS

Two reviewers independently reviewed articles and came to a consensus about which ones to include. The authors excluded all duplicates, articles involving individuals with aphasia or other speech problems other than dysarthria, and articles unrelated to stroke. Articles were included if diagnostic measures were used to examine the effectiveness of speech rehabilitation in stroke patients.

SYNTHESIS: The search identified 1154 articles with the keywords "stroke" OR "ictus" OR "cerebral vascular accident" AND "dysarthria" OR "Speech and Language Disorders" AND "diagnosis" OR "assessment." The reviewers analyzed 86 full texts. There were 37 publications that met the criteria and were included in the systematic review. These articles were used to describe the main methods used for measuring the severity of stroke-related dysarthria before and after speech rehabilitation.

CONCLUSION

Despite the range of diagnostic tools available, robust trials are lacking, and the diagnostic approaches are always different. More research is needed to find the best diagnostic methodologies and delineate a definitive diagnostic protocol.