Speech Powered by Mouthpiece Positive Pressure Ventilation in Neuromuscular Disease

Abstract

There has been an increase in use of noninvasive positive-pressure ventilators (NPPV) to provide breathing assistance to people who are limited in their ability to breathe on their own as a result of neuromuscular impairment. To date, essentially nothing is known about how NPPV inspirations are used to power speech, beginning with whether or not individuals actually use their NPPV device for the purposes of speech. This project aimed to quantify inspirations that power speech in users of NPPV, and the amount of speech that followed NPPV powered speech. While participants claimed that NPPV helped them speak, NPPV was found to power only 37% of their speech utterances. For those who did use NPPV to power speech, NPPV-assisted inspirations were sometimes followed by a greater number of syllables compared to those that followed non-assisted inspirations (up to 35% greater). Preliminary results indicate that NPPV users do not take advantage of the potential benefits of powering speech with their ventilator and that speech-language pathologists may be of assistance in helping them do that.