Association between activities of daily living and oral diadochokinesis among Japanese elderly individuals in a nursing home

Aim: We studied the association between the activities of daily living (ADL) and oral diadochokinesis (OD) among 84 Japanese elderly individuals residing in a nursing home. Methods: We assessed OD in terms of speech and articulation. Each subject repetitively produced the syllables /pa/, /ta/, /ka/ and the sequence /pataka/. We also evaluated comprehensive ADL (basic, BADL; instrumental, IADL; and communicative, CADL) based on the criteria of the ADL-20 and intellectual ability using the revised Hasegawa Dementia Scale (HDS-R). We classified types of OD into a hypokinesia group (less than 3 times per second for OD /pa//ta//ka/ or less than once per second for OD /pataka/) and a repetition exercise maintenance group (more than 3 times per second for OD /pa//ta/ /ka/ or more than once per second for OD /pataka/). Results: After adjusting for age, sex, and HDS-R score, the ADL-20 total score of the hypokinesia group was significantly lower than that of the maintenance group for OD (/pa/ and /pataka/) (p