Washington, Aug 26 - A simple new method can help Parkinson's patients speak normally.

'People with Parkinson's... commonly have voice and speech problems,' said Jessica Huber, associate professor at Purdue University's speech, language and hearing sciences department, who has developed the method.

'A major therapy is to get people to speak louder, which also may cause them to articulate more clearly,' Huber said.

The most common therapy, the Lee Silverman voice treatment programme, trains patients to speak louder in one-hour sessions four days a week for a month.

'Some Parkinson's patients do great with this approach, but others do not,' Huber said. 'They forget to keep speaking louder the minute they have left the therapy room.'

'So I wanted to know whether there was an easier way to cue people during therapy.' Huber used a new approach: The patients were asked to speak louder while a recording of background 'multitalker babble noise' was played.