Taking a Look at Flaccid Dysarthria

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Flaccid Dysarthria falls within one of two major categories of motor speech disorders. Motor speech disorders are classified as either dysarthria’s or apraxia’s. Flaccid Dysarthria, which has to do with damage to the lower motor neurons, is only one of six categorized dysarthria’s, the others being as follows: Spastic Dysarthria, Ataxic Dysarthria, Hyperkinetic Dysarthria, Hypokinetic Dysarthria, and Mixed Dysarthria. Features of each of these dysarthria’s are distinctive due to the site of damage and can help with the diagnosis of the particular dysarthria. The medical dictionary online defines flaccid dysarthria as weakness or paralysis of the articulatory muscles due to LMN disorders, causing hypernasality, imprecise consonants, breathy voice, raspy voice and monotony of pitch. In the most severe forms of flaccid dysarthria, it is characterized by the shriveling and flaccidity of the tongue and laxness & tremulousness of the lips. This is seen in advanced cases of lesions that are located in the motor nucleus of the lower pons or medulla oblongata. As mentioned beforehand flaccid dysarthria occurs when there is damage to the lower motor neurons, specifically the region affected is the pons and the medulla located in the lower brainstem. An injury at this site is going to cause any number of the following characteristics to manifest: breathiness, hypernasality, short phrases, monopitch, imprecise consonants, diplophonia, poor intelligibility, impairment in elevating the tongue, drooling and or poor lip seal. Basically any of the subsystems of our speech system can be affected such as resonance, articulation, phonation, respiration and/or prosody. The damage that is caused to the lower motor neurons can be attributed ... ... middle of paper ... ...r, it could indirectly affect respiratory, resonance, and phonation functions. The most severe limitation would be if the head drooped forward causing the inhibition of respiration. For a lesion here an SLP would typically work on correct posture to assist with the clients rehabilitation. Lastly damage to the XIIth nerve, the hypoglossal nerve, would affect the motor aspects of the intrinsic and extrinsic tongue muscles, causing deviation and/or atrophy. An SLP would typically work with tongue strengthening exercises or articulation treatments to help correct/treat damage to this area. While there are many different types of dysarthria diagnosis’s and treatments to go with the specified diagnosis, the collaborative effort of all involved are essential to the successful outcomes of the client involved to lead a normal a life as possible in their circumstances.

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