Airway Resistance of the Voice Button

Dynamic behavior of the Provox and Staffieri prostheses for voice rehabilitation following total laryngectomy

“…This depends on the resistance exerted by the valve system and neoglottis and varies from person to person. The resistance exerted by the voice button-neoglottis system is generally ten times greater than the resistance of a normal larynx [22,24,26]. For these reasons, the valves under study were tested at pressures ranging from 0 to 90 cmH 2 O and at air flows ranging from 0 to 0.35 l/s.…”

“…To date, there has been widespread conviction that the lower the inherent valve resistance, the better the phonation. For this reason, there have been various attempts in recent years to design phonatory prostheses with lower inherent resistances [2,3,5,7,9,11,13,17,21,22,29]. Clinical experience, however, has shown that the best prosthesis is not necessarily the one that presents the lowest resistance [29].…”

An apparatus to measure pressure, flow and speech parameters in patients producing speech using the Groningen valve prosthesis

“…Several studies have concentrated on the differences in in vitro flow and derived resistance parameters between different series of valves (Weinberg, 1982;Weinberg and Moon, 1986) but it has been more difficult to obtain more useful information on the action of these devices whilst being used in vivo during the production of alaryngeal speech. The apparatus described was developed during the course of our studies and was constructed in part by the conversion of a Mercury NR1 Rhinomanometer at an approximate cost of £300.…”