Voice Rehabilitation: Is It Effective in the Patient's Point of View?

Abstract

Objectives: Investigate the patient’s self perceived efficacy of voice rehabilitation after laryngeal cancer. Methods: All patients who were diagnosed with laryngeal cancer during the years 2000 through 2011 were asked to participate in a randomized study on voice rehabilitation with a speech language pathologist. 79 patients agreed to participate. 37 of the patients underwent voice rehabilitation after completion of radiotherapy, and 42 worked as a control group. The study group filled in the Swedish version of the Self Evaluation of Communication Experiences after Laryngeal cancer (S-SECEL) before and after voice rehabilitation, the control group at parallel times. Results: 81% of the study group experienced an improvement of voice and communication measured with the S-SECEL. In the control group 33% improved during the same period. In the study group 16% reported a worse perceived vocal function; in the control group corresponding values were 47%. 5% of the patients in the control group did not report any difference. Measurements from 1 and 6 patients in the study group and control group are missing respectively. The difference in mean values between the first and second measurement improved for the study group by 8.4 points. For the control group a deterioration of 4.4 was seen. Conclusions: Voice rehabilitation gives the patient a better self-perceived communication and voice function. Some patients who did not receive vocal rehabilitation experienced improved voice function, but for the patients who received voice rehabilitation improvement was seen in a majority of the cases.