iParkinsons treats the speech disorders associated with Parkinsons disease, including hypokinetic dysarthria. iParkinsons changes how your hear your voice in earphones, in three ways:
• Multitalker babble noise treats hypophonia or low vocal volume. It sounds likes a party with people talking around you. This induces the Lombard effect and increases vocal volume 5-10 dB.
• Delayed auditory feedback (DAF) treats festinating speech or "run together" words. The user hears his or her voice delayed a fraction of a second. This helps pace the users speech.
• Pitch-shifting frequency-altered auditory feedback (FAF) changes the pitch of the users voice in his or her earphones. This increases speech motor activity and articulation clarity in some persons with Parkinsons.
iParkinsons also provides a visual display of your vocal volume. You try to get your voice into the red zone, indicating that you are loud.
Each person with Parkinsons is unique. There isnt one speech disorder associated with Parkinsons; there are several speech disorders, each of which responds to a different treatment. iParkinsons is a "tool kit" that can be customized for each user, unlike other "one size fits all" speech therapy programs.
iParkinsons requires little or no training, therapy, cognitive effort, or exercises. It can be set up in an hour and it can be used by persons experiencing cognitive decline.
A clinical trial is underway. Please tell us if you would like to participate. The subjects who have been evaluated have had 2x to 6x increases in speech intelligibility.
Consumers should try iParkinsons before buying. You can try iParkinsons in your speech-language pathologists office. If you dont have a speech-language pathologist contact us for a referral.
If you are a speech-language pathologist please contact us.
Please see our website for:
• Recommended microphones and earphones.
• Evaluation kits.
• Trial period and warranty.
iParkinsons is compatible with any iPhone or iPod touch with iOS 5.0, fully tested with iOS 6. iParkinsons runs on any iPad in iPhone mode in 1x or 2x size.
iParkinsons is rated 17+ only to prevent children from accidentally buying the app. There is no objectionable content of any kind. The app is in the "Mature" category to reflect of the respectable age of Parkinsons patients. :-)