Summary
Objective
In recent years, the incidence of vocal fold atrophy has increased among the elderly.
Vocal function exercises (VFE) are performed in patients with age-related vocal fold
atrophy; however, treatment could be challenging if the patient is unable to go to
the hospital or in hospitals that do not have a speech pathologist. Breath-holding
pulling exercises are simple and can be performed anywhere for the management of such
patients. This study aimed to examine the effectiveness of breath-holding pulling
exercises in patients with vocal fold atrophy.
Study Design
Retrospective study
Methods
With the hands folded in front of the chest, the patients were instructed to take
a deep breath, pull their hands to the left and right, and then hold their breath
for 5 seconds. The physician instructed the patients to do this 10 times each morning,
afternoon, and evening. Speech function, acoustic analysis, pitch range, and Voice
Handicap Index-10 (VHI-10) were evaluated and compared before and 4-8 weeks after
treatment.
Results
Maximum phonation time (MPT), the primary endpoint, significantly improved after treatment
from 14.2 ± 6.6 to 20.3 ± 9.3 seconds. Among the secondary endpoints, mean flow rate
(207.5 ± 104.4 to 165.1 ± 66.5 mL/s), pitch range (22.9 ± 8.3 to 26.2 ± 8.1 semitones),
VHI-10 (18.1 ± 7.2 to 12.5 ± 6.3 points) jitter (2.5±1.6 to 1.7±1.2%), and shimmer
(5.9±3.5 to 4.8±3.3%) showed significant improvement.
Conclusion
Breath-holding pulling exercises were found to be effective in patients with vocal
fold atrophy. These can be performed in hospitals with no speech pathologists, in
patients who are unable to go to the hospital, and in patients who are hospitalized
or unable to speak loudly. Moreover, as with conventional VFE, the training method
achieves a high level of patient satisfaction.
Key Words
Abbreviations:
F0 (fundamental frequency), MFR (mean flow rate), MPT (maximum phonation time), NHR (noise-to-harmonic ratio), SD (standard deviation), VFE (Vocal function exercises), VHI-10 (Voice Handicap Index-10), VT (voice therapy)To read this article in full you will need to make a payment
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: August 17, 2022
Accepted:
June 30,
2022
Publication stage
In Press Corrected ProofIdentification
Copyright
© 2022 The Voice Foundation. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
