FORCEWIN RT: Clinical Application for Motor Speech Disorders

R Raghavendra, S Barlow

A new clinical tool designated as FORCEWIN RT was designed to routinely perform automated biomechanical measures of active force dynamics among orofacial muscle subsystems pertinent to the clinical evaluation of patients with motor speech disorders. Real time display, stimulus control, linked sequencing of stimulus events, and digital signal processing provide the patient and clinician with tracking performance on force recruitment, hold phase, decruitment, and tetanic output for the upper lip, lower lip, jaw, tongue, and upper limb. A wide range of time and frequency domain analyses completed on 16-bit resolution force signals during patient evaluation provide the clinician with a new tool for exploring mechanisms of plasticity and sensorimotor reorganization presumed to occur in dysarthric patients. Several examples of the orofacial force dynamics analysis will be shown from dysarthric patients with Parkinson’s disease.