Abstract
The chief symptoms of spinocerebellar degeneration (S. C. D. ) are disorders of upper or lower limb movement and of speech. Though some reports on its dysarthrie have been presented, there are few detailed studies on its velopharyngeal closure function. Thus, we investigated the velopharyngeal function in S. C. D. patients using a nasopharyngeal fiberscope to see the nasopharyngeal movement directly.
The subjects were 10 patients who were diagnosed as S. C. D. at the First Department of Internal Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Kumamoto University or its related hospitals. The age of patients ranged from 24 to 76 years. Velopharyngeal function was examined by intelligibility rating aerodynamic and nasopharyngeal fiberscopic examinations.
In the intelligibility rating examination, the monosyllable was 88.4 % and the nonsense threesyllable was 74.5 % on the average. Air leakage from the nose was observed in 2 out of 7 cases in the aerodynamic examination. In the nasopharyngeal fiberscopic examination,3 cases were classified into 0 type,1 was I c type,2 were ITI type and 1 was IV type. But 2 cases showed on incomplate closure only at blowing. In another 1 case, a complete closure was seen at some consonants and vowels. So these three cases didn't belong to Yamaoka's classification.
From these results, it was obvious that the degree of velopharyngeal closure function is variable in S. C. D.. It was also suggested that the progress of disfunction is related to the pattern of disease in S. C. D.. In other words, to examine the velopharyngeal closure dysfunction seems useful for deciding the pattern of disease or grasping the state of progress in S. C. D. patients.
