Summary
Objective
Low humidity environments and mouth breathing may contribute to superficial vocal
fold dehydration. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of obligatory
mouth breathing, during daily activities in low- and high-humidity environments, on
voice measures. The activities included 15 minutes of obligatory mouth breathing alone,
during loud reading and during exercise. The effects of mouth breathing and humidity
were compared in subjects who either reported or did not report vocal worsening after
heavy voice use.
Study Design
Prospective, between-group, repeated-measures design.
Methods
Sixty-three healthy adults with normal respiratory function and perceptually normal
voice participated in this study. Thirty-one subjects reported symptoms of voice worsening
with heavy voice use. Thirty-two subjects who did not report these symptoms participated
as controls. Phonation threshold pressure and perceived phonatory effort were measured
at baseline and after each obligatory mouth breathing challenge. Ambient humidity
was set to either low or high humidity.
Results
Obligatory mouth breathing in loud reading and exercise significantly increased phonation
threshold pressure when compared with mouth breathing alone. This increase in phonation
threshold pressure was observed at low and high humidity, in both subject groups.
There were no significant effects for perceived phonatory effort.
Conclusions
Obligatory mouth breathing during loud reading and exercise negatively impact phonation
threshold pressure. Future investigations that include longer challenge durations,
and subjects with voice disorders, are needed to elucidate the underlying mechanisms
for increases in phonation threshold pressure.
Key Words
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: August 27, 2012
Accepted:
March 20,
2012
Identification
Copyright
© 2012 The Voice Foundation. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
