Although CTR is an effective treatment for adult LTS, it results in significant alteration of the adult voice. In particular, CTR decreases the fundamental frequency of connected speech and vowel phonation and changes the acoustic signal type. Patients should be counseled about these likely voice alterations prior to undergoing surgery.

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Background:The effect of active workstation implementation on speech quality in a typical work setting remains unclear.Purpose:To assess differences between sitting, standing, and walking on energy expenditure and speech quality.Methods:Twenty-two females and 9 males read silently, read aloud, and spoke spontaneously during 3 postural conditions: sitting, standing, and walking at 1.61 km/h. Oxygen consumption (VO2), blood pressure, and rating of perceived exertion (RPE) were obtained during each condition. Expert listeners, blinded to the purpose of the study and the protocol, assessed randomized samples of the participants’ speech during reading and spontaneous speech tasks in 3 postural conditions.Results:Standing elevated metabolic rate significantly over sitting (3.3 ± 0.7 vs. 3.6 ± 0.9 ml·kg−1·min−1). Walking at 1.6 km/h while performing the respective tasks resulted in VO2 values of 7.0 to 8.1 ml·kg−1·min−1. There was no significant difference in the average number of syllables included in each speech sample across the conditions. The occurrence of ungrammatical pauses was minimal and did not differ across the conditions.Conclusion:The significant elevation of metabolic rate in the absence of any deterioration in speech quality or RPE support the utility of using active work stations to increase physical activity (PA) in the work environment.

Objectives We performed a retrospective review to compare a subjective parental proxy-derived voice handicap survey to an observer-derived method of measuring voice perturbation in children who have undergone airway reconstruction. The main outcome measures were the Pediatric Voice Handicap Index (pVHI) total score and the Overall Severity score on the Consensus Auditory-Perceptual Evaluation of Voice (CAPE-V). Methods The percent Overall Severity CAPE-V score (score divided by 100) and the percent pVHI score (score divided by 92) were calculated. A Wilcoxon signed rank test was used to compare CAPE-V scores with the pVHI total scores. The relationship between the pVHI scores and the CAPE-V scores was investigated with a Spearman correlation. Subgroup analysis was performed to determine the relationship of surgery type to CAPE-V and pVHI scores. Results Fifty subjects with a history of airway surgery who were evaluated between 2005 and 2008 were identified. Forty-two of the 50 subjects had complete data for review. Their median age was 7.1 years (range, 3.3 to 17.9 years). Their pVHI total scores had a median of 30 (range, 1 to 80). Their Overall Severity CAPE-V scores had a median of 50.5 (range, 0 to 98). Their median CAPE-V percent was higher than their median pVHI percent (50.5% versus 32.6%; p = 0.0003). A weak correlation was found between the Overall Severity CAPE-V score and the pVHI total score (rho = 0.41; p = 0.0003). There was a trend toward higher Overall Severity CAPE-V scores in patients who underwent cricotracheal resection. The total number of airway surgeries was significantly correlated with the Overall Severity CAPE-V score (rho = 0.6; p < 0.0001) but not with the pVHI score. Conclusions Children who undergo airway reconstruction often have a resulting voice disturbance that can affect their lives in multiple dimensions. The results of this study revealed a weak-to-fair correlation between the parent-reported pVHI total score and expert ratings of voice quality using the CAPE-V. In this patient population, both of these tools provided important information regarding the relationship of the severity of voice disturbance to its handicapping effects.