Voice Therapy Improves Quality of Life in Age-Related Dysphonia: A Case-Control Study

Fonoterapia vocal e fisioterapia respiratória com idosos saudáveis: revisão de literatura

“…In relation to the self-evaluation, it was noticed a significant improvement in V-RQOL, scores 19,23 , in the Dysphonia Risk Screening Protocol 21 , a decrease in Vocal Handicap Index scores, self-reported positive effect of the therapeutic program on voice 17,19 , significant reduction in perception of the phonation effort 19 , a decrease in inadequate habits and vocal symptoms 9. In physical therapy, it is observed that the literature of the period from 2004 to 2014 showed only 11 research on respiratory therapy in healthy elderly subjects: three using the Threshold machine, two with incentive spirometry, with a manual therapy, with the use of breathing exercises associated with the trunk and upper limb movement in soil and aquatic environment and four involving physical activity.…”

“…It is supposed that the vocal phonotherapy work and respiratory physiotherapy might optimize the treatment and provide more benefits to patients, especially if they can occur in an associated way 2 . The literature that was consulted during the period from 2004 to 2014 showed only 11 research on vocal phonotherapy in healthy elderly people: one through vocal orientation 9 ; three with specific vocal exercises, such as, TMF support of vowels and musical scales with vowels and words 18 , sounded blowing 5 and the Finnish method of resonance tubes 22 ; two carried out a review of medical records of elderly who underwent voice therapy for presbyphonia, regardless of the kind of intervention 23,24 ; five of them applied therapeutic programs: the Lee Silverman 20 method, the Vocal Cognitive Program 21 , the program of vocal function exercises of Stemple 16,17 , and the comparison between the vocal function method and the PhoRTE 19 . The results of speech therapy with elderly people showed an improvement in voice quality in relation to the aspects of roughness 17,22 , breathiness 20,22 , asthenia 20,22 , instability 22 , tension 22 , loudness 20,21 and the general level of the vocal disorder 15,18,20,21,22,24 ; a decrease in effort phonation 18 , an improvement in resonance 18 and articulation clarity 21 .…”

“…Considering that these were cases of individual therapies records held during three years in a center for specialized care in voice, it was not possible to specify the objectives and techniques performed during the therapeutic sessions. It was observed that the RG attended therapy for an average of 4.1 sessions and showed a significant increase in quality of life after the process 23 . Another study that carried out a review of 77 medical records of elderly people during a period of three years on a voice center showed that the main complaint of patients was the hoarseness, the videostroboscopy examination showed the presence of vocal folds atrophy even in absence of the larynx or neurological conditions, and that 85% of patients improved with voice therapy, regardless of sex or age 24 .…”

Influência do sexo, idade, profissão e diagnóstico fonoaudiológico na qualidade de vida em voz

“…It is about functionally simple protocols, easy to apply, which have clear questions, thus becoming clinical tools for the assessment of treatment results. Also, provide more refined understanding of the dimensions of the effects of a voice problem in the patient's life and their psychosocial consequences, through selfawareness about their dysphonia, despite criticism on its preparation 1,4,9,[11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19] .…”

“…In this context, there are scientific studies in the literature addressing the effects of voice disorders on quality of life in different populations 4,6,[9][10][11][12][13][14] . However , there are few studies correlating the variables addressed in this study (age, gender and occupational use or non occupational use of voice) with the results of the questionnaires V-RQOL and VHI 15 , and so far none of them correlated phonoaudiological diagnosis with the same questionnaires.…”