Potential link between playing wind instruments and vocal tract disorders. A literature review

Abstract

Introduction and purpose: Currently, we can distinguish three basic groups of instruments. These are wind instruments, percussion instruments, and plucked instruments. In the case of wind instruments, the source of sound is a vibrating column of air, which is created by blowing by the player. It is suspected that such vibration may cause specific vocal and laryngeal symptoms. The aim of the study was to present the current state of knowledge regarding the potential relation between playing wind instruments and vocal tract disorders.
 Material and methods: The article reviews 19 publications available on the PubMed and Google Scholar, Web of Science databases meeting assumed criteria: published as a full text, without time limit and conducted on humans. The studies were found using initially established searching strategies as well as subsequent manual searching in order not to miss adequate articles.
 State of knowledge: Laryngeal symptoms may be combined with vocal symptoms. The main raised vocal manifestations among instrumentalists are dysphonia, hoarseness, and altered voice quality. Comparing a group that used wind instruments with control, VHI-10 (Voice Handicap Index) and F0 (fundamental frequency) and HNR (harmonics-to-noise ratio) were higher while jitter % and shimmer %, which are perturbation parameters, were lower in the study group. The majority of studies has a limitation because they were performed in a limited number of volunteers.
 Conclusions: The symptoms of the vocal tract related to playing wind instruments are characterized by a low frequency of occurrence and intensity. However, further research is needed to assess this relation.