Abstract
to study the dosage dependent effect of high-resistance straw exercise in women with behavioral dysphonia and in vocally healthy women. 25 dysphonic women (DG), with average age of 35 years (SD = 10.5) and 30 vocally healthy women (VHG), with average age of 31.6 years (SD = 10.3). The participants produced a continuous sound into a thin high-resistance straw for seven minutes, being interrupted after the first, third, fifth and seventh minute. At each interval, speech samples were recorded (sustained vowel and counting up to 20) and subsequently acoustically analyzed. Each participant reported the effort necessary to perform exercise and to speak, indicating their ratings on visual analog scales (VAS). with regard to the DG, the exercise caused positive vocal changes, especially between the third and fifth minute: less phonatory effort, increase in MPT, and reduction of F0 variability; these voice parameters deteriorated after five minutes. This fact associated with the increased effort to perform the exercise indicates a possible overload of the phonatory system. As to the VHG, MPT improved after one minute of exercise, while the other parameters did not change over time, probably due to the fact that the voices were not deviant; seven minutes did not seem to impose an overload in this population. positive vocal changes were observed with the high-resistance straw exercise; however, there are dosage restrictions, especially for dysphonic women.
Highlights
Vocal training is an intervention for improvement and rehabilitation which aims for a production with minimum effort and maximum efficiency[1]
The inclusion criteria for the vocally healthy group (VHG) were: lack of vocal complaint, neutral vocal quality assessed by voice triage by means of auditory-perceptual analysis carried out after sample collection, absence of treatable laryngeal alteration according to otorhinolaryngological assessment performed by the same team of Setor Interdepartamental de Laringologia e Voz of Unifesp, and lack of previous voice treatment
Respecting the literature’s suggestions of directing intervention to specific groups and considering the time available to carry out this study, only women with chronic behavioral dysphonia and vocally healthy women were included in the sample, since they are populations for which the exercise studied is indicated[15]
Summary
Vocal training is an intervention for improvement and rehabilitation which aims for a production with minimum effort and maximum efficiency[1]. It involves daily exercises, acquisition and generalization of techniques for better vocal production, elimination of harmful vocal behaviors and, in some cases, reducing use of speech and voice[2,3]. Data on efficacy and prescription of these treatments is still limited[2,4,5,6] This gap is assigned to several issues: in terminology, definition, flaws in the statistical basis, lack of control groups and standardization of procedures among studies, such as exercise dosage and duration of treatment[6]. Exercises are still prescribed based on the therapist’s clinical experiences
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