Telepractice Versus In-Person Delivery of Voice Therapy for Primary Muscle Tension Dysphonia

Abstract

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate the utility of telepractice for delivering flow phonation exercises to persons with primary muscle tension dysphonia (MTD). Method: Fourteen participants with a diagnosis of primary MTD participated, 7 on site and 7 at remote locations. Each participant received 12 treatment sessions across 6 weeks. Treatment consisted of flow phonation voice therapy exercises. Auditory-perceptual, acoustic, aerodynamic, and quality-of-life measures were taken before and after treatment. Results: Perceptual and qualityof-life measures were significantly better posttreatment and were statistically equivalent across groups. Acoustic and aerodynamic measures improved in both groups, but changes did not reach statistical significance. Results for the 2 service delivery groups were comparable, with no significant differences observed for perceptual and quality-of-life measures. Conclusions: Although the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association supports the use of telepractice for speech-language pathology services, evidence for the use of telepractice for providing behavioral treatment to patients with MTD has been lacking. The results of this study indicate that flow phonation exercises can be successfully used for patients with MTD using telepractice.

Multiparametric Assessment of the Efficacy of Voice Therapy in the Management of Hyper functional Voice Disorders

“…The voice therapy included five aspects: a. programme on vocal hygiene, b. symptomatic voice therapy (circumlaryngeal massage, chewing exercises, yawn sigh approach, phonation on inhalation), c. Respiratory retraining (Breath support, confidential voice therapy), d. physiologic voice therapy (vocal function exercises, accent method, resonant voice therapy, e. Psychogenic voice therapy. Another study by Rangarathnam et al [24] evaluated the effects of 10-15 minutes of vocal hygiene programme and 20-25 minutes of airflow exercises through tele-therapy mode in individuals with MTD. Positive effects were found in the perceptual and voice related quality-of-life outcomes.…”

An Online Telepractice Model for the Prevention of Voice Disorders in Vocally Healthy Student Teachers Evaluated by a Smartphone Application

“…Three additional treatment studies for voice disorders are found in the literature that are not tied to patients with PD (Fu, Theodoros, & Ward, 2015; Mashima et al, 2003; Rangarathnam et al, 2015). Fu et al (2015) delivered intensive voice therapy (i.e., eight sessions over three weeks) via videoconferencing to 10 women with vocal nodules and found significant improvements in acoustic, perceptual, quality-of-life measures, and nodule size at post-treatment, mirroring the outcomes in a separate in-person study.…”

Protótipo de aplicativo para terapia vocal: análise por pares

“…In recent years, the efficacy of voice techniques using plastic straw (3) , resonance tube (4,5) and silicon tube (6) has been shown. Electronic technology has also proven useful for voice speech therapy through visual feedback with acoustic analysis software (7) , videos with correct models of voice techniques on portable MP4 players (8) , video games as aids for voice techniques (9) , neuromuscular electrical stimulation (10) and therapy via teleconferencing (11) . Another fast growing area is mobile technology applied to health.…”