Browsing by Author "Wang, Jingying"

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    Acoustic differences between healthy and depressed people: a cross-situation study
    Wang, Jingying; Zhang, Lei; Liu, Tianli; Pan, Wei; Hu, Bin; Zhu, Tingshao (2019-10-15)
    Background Abnormalities in vocal expression during a depressed episode have frequently been reported in people with depression, but less is known about if these abnormalities only exist in special situations. In addition, the impacts of irrelevant demographic variables on voice were uncontrolled in previous studies. Therefore, this study compares the vocal differences between depressed and healthy people under various situations with irrelevant variables being regarded as covariates. Methods To examine whether the vocal abnormalities in people with depression only exist in special situations, this study compared the vocal differences between healthy people and patients with unipolar depression in 12 situations (speech scenarios). Positive, negative and neutral voice expressions between depressed and healthy people were compared in four tasks. Multiple analysis of covariance (MANCOVA) was used for evaluating the main effects of variable group (depressed vs. healthy) on acoustic features. The significances of acoustic features were evaluated by both statistical significance and magnitude of effect size. Results The results of multivariate analysis of covariance showed that significant differences between the two groups were observed in all 12 speech scenarios. Although significant acoustic features were not the same in different scenarios, we found that three acoustic features (loudness, MFCC5 and MFCC7) were consistently different between people with and without depression with large effect magnitude. Conclusions Vocal differences between depressed and healthy people exist in 12 scenarios. Acoustic features including loudness, MFCC5 and MFCC7 have potentials to be indicators for identifying depression via voice analysis. These findings support that depressed people’s voices include both situation-specific and cross-situational patterns of acoustic features.
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    Measurement of Step Angle for Quantifying the Gait Impairment of Parkinson's Disease by Wearable Sensors: Controlled Study
    Wang, Jingying; Gong, Dawei; Luo, Huichun; Zhang, Wenbin; Zhang, Lei; Zhang, Han; Zhou, Junhong; Wang, Shouyan (2020-03-20)
    Background: Gait impairments including shuffling gait and hesitation are common in people with Parkinson's disease (PD), and have been linked to increased fall risk and freezing of gait. Nowadays the gait metrics mostly focus on the spatiotemporal characteristics of gait, but less is known of the angular characteristics of the gait, which may provide helpful information pertaining to the functional status and effects of the treatment in PD. Objective: This study aimed to quantify the angles of steps during walking, and explore if this novel step angle metric is associated with the severity of PD and the effects of the treatment including the acute levodopa challenge test (ALCT) and deep brain stimulation (DBS). Methods: A total of 18 participants with PD completed the walking test before and after the ALCT, and 25 participants with PD completed the test with the DBS on and off. The walking test was implemented under two conditions: walking normally at a preferred speed (single task) and walking while performing a cognitive serial subtraction task (dual task). A total of 17 age-matched participants without PD also completed this walking test. The angular velocity was measured using wearable sensors on each ankle, and three gait angular metrics were obtained, that is mean step angle, initial step angle, and last step angle. The conventional gait metrics (ie, step time and step number) were also calculated. Results: The results showed that compared to the control, the following three step angle metrics were significantly smaller in those with PD: mean step angle (F-1,F-48=69.75, P<.001, partial eta-square=0.59), initial step angle (F-1,F-48=15.56, P<.001, partial eta-square=0.25), and last step angle (F-1,F-48=61.99, P<.001, partial eta-square=0.56). Within the PD cohort, both the ALCT and DBS induced greater mean step angles (ACLT: F-1,F-38=5.77, P=.02, partial eta-square=0.13; DBS: F-1,F-52=8.53, P=.005, partial eta-square=0.14) and last step angles (ACLT: F-1,F-38=10, P=.003, partial eta-square=0.21; DBS: F-1,F-52=4.96, P=.003, partial eta-square=0.09), but no significant changes were observed in step time and number after the treatments. Additionally, these step angles were correlated with the Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale, Part III score: mean step angle (single task: r=-0.60, P<.001; dual task: r=-0.52, P<.001), initial step angle (single task: r=-0.35, P=.006; dual task: r=-0.35, P=.01), and last step angle (single task: r=-0.43, P=.001; dual task: r=-0.41, P=.002). Conclusions: This pilot study demonstrated that the gait angular characteristics, as quantified by the step angles, were sensitive to the disease severity of PD and, more importantly, can capture the effects of treatments on the gait, while the traditional metrics cannot. This indicates that these metrics may serve as novel markers to help the assessment of gait in those with PD as well as the rehabilitation of this vulnerable cohort.