• Journal of the Korean Society of Laryngology, Phoniatrics and Logopedics
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.145-150
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• 2002

Background and Objectives : Patients with so-called 'functional voice disorders' who have structurally normal larynges and demonstrate muscle misuse in the larynx, and those with several interacting causes including habitual muscle tension, are probably better defined as having a 'muscle misuse voice disorder'. The purpose of this study was to analyze the voice and effectiveness of voice therapy in patients with functional voice disorders and to provide a guide for the treatment of functional voice disorder. Materials and Method : The records of 35 patients, presenting with functional voice disorder and receiving voice therapy during October, 2001 to September, 2002, were reviewed. Prior to voice therapy, the stroboscopic examination of their larynx, aerodynamic and acoustic analysis was done. The results of voice therapy were compared according to the patient's subjective, perceptual evaluation of voice, and maximal phonation time. Results : Patient's subjective, perceptual evaluation, and maximal phonation time showed superior results after voice therapy. Conclusion : The result of this study indicates that voice therapy is an effective treatment method of patients with functional voice disorder, especially muscular tension dysphonia.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.105-114
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• 2012

This paper will discuss the difference between self assessment of voice disorders and the hearer voice assessment of a comparative group of normal subjects. The study was conducted on 25 voice disorder subjects and 32 hearers of a comparative group of normal subjects. The results are as follows. Firstly, in K-VHI and VHI-H, the hearers of the comparative group of normal subjects perceived more serious voice disorders than the voice disorder group in all sub-domains. Likewise, in K-VQOL and VRQOL-H, the hearers of the comparative group of normal subjects perceived more serious voice disorders than the voice disorder group in all sub-domains. Secondly, the hearer voice assessment of the comparative group of normal subjects showed no difference in gender regarding the perception of the severity of voice disorder issues. Thirdly, the hearer voice assessment of the comparative group of normal subjects states that in the emotional aspects of VHI-H, professional voice users perceive more serious voice disorders than others. Accordingly, in VRQOL-H, there was no difference in use of the voice between professionals and others.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.63-69
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• 2013

This study attempted to investigate the characteristics of Phonation Threshold Pressure and Phonation Threshold Airflow of Patients who have Functional voice disorder. 50 subjects participated in study (32 subjects were patients who had functional voice disorders and 20 subjects were normal adults). The PAS (Phonatory aerodynamic system, model 6600, KAY electronics, Inc.) was used to measure the data and to do the analysis. Data from the Phonation Threshold Pressure was measured using voicing efficiency of the PAS protocol. Data from the Phonation Threshold Airflow was measured using Maximum Sustained Phonation of the PAS protocol. Those were used because of the ease of phonation. The results of this study showed that the differences in Phonation Threshold Pressure and Phonation Threshold Airflow between patients who had functional voice disorder and normal adults could be significant index. Patients who had functional voice disorder showed more higher figures than normal adults. These results suggest that Phonation Threshold Pressure and Phonation Threshold Airflow are very useful in diagnosing the voice disorder. The measured data also provided useful information for diagnosing patients with vocal fold diseases.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.111-116
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• 2011

The purpose of this study was to analyze the association between self-reported voice problems and voice disorders in the Korean adult population. Data were collected from the 4th Korea National Health and Nutritional Examination Survey (2008) from 3,135 subjects (1,310 men and 1,825 women) aged 19 years and older. Multi-nominal logistic regression analyses were used to examine the association between self-reported voice problems and voice disorders in the Korean adult population. Adjusting for covariates (age, sex, education level, job, smoking, alcohol drinking, thyroid disorders, pain and discomfort during the last 2 weeks), self-reported voice problems included independently associated functional voice disorders (OR=4.70, 95% CI: 3.14-7.03) and organic voice disorders (OR=3.89, 95% CI: 1.57-9.65). The results of the present study verified that self-reported voice problems are valuable indicators for voice disorders. Further research is needed to ascertain the effect of self-reported voice problems on voice disorder in adults.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.3 no.3
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• pp.173-179
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• 2011

The present study was performed to investigate the intelligibility of voice disorder patients by providing the various background noise levels. Four sets of 12-sentence-stimuli produced by 11 voice disorder patients were prepared, and 5 minute-news from radio broadcasting studio were used as a background noise. 30 listeners assigned intelligibility score of each sentence with visual analog scale. Each set of sentences was provided with 20dB, 10dB, 0dB noise (same intensity with stimuli), and, finally, with no noise. As results, as background noise level increased, intelligibility scores were lowered with statistical significance. Even though in the same severity, more loud background noise showed much lower scores than less loud noise. When 10dB noise was provided, intelligibility scores showed the biggest difference among the degree of severity.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Laryngology, Phoniatrics and Logopedics
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.71-78
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• 2017

Voice disorder is classified into three categories, structural, neurogenic and functional dysphonia. Neurogenic dysphonia refers to a disruption in the nerves controlling the larynx. Common examples of this include complete or partial vocal cord paralysis, spasmodic dysphonia. Also it occurs as part of an underlying neurologic condition such as Parkinson's disease, myasthenia gravis, Lou Gehrig's disease or disorder of the central nervous system that causes involuntary movement of the vocal folds during voice production. Functional dysphonia is a voice disorder in the absence of structual or neurogenic laryngeal characteristics. A near consensus exist that Muscle tension dysphonia (MTD) is functional voice disorder wherein hyperfunctional laryngeal muscle activity whereas Spasmodic dysphonia (SD) is neurogenic, action-induced focal laryngeal dystonia including several subtype. Both Adductor type spasmodic dysphonia (AdSD) and MTD may be associated with excessive supraglottic contraction and compensation, resulting in a strained voice quality with spastic voice breaks. It makes these two disorders extremely difficult to differentiate based on clinical interpretation alone. Because treatment for AdSD and MTD are quite different, correct diagnosis is important. Clinician should be aware of the specific vocal characteristics of each disease to improve therapeutic outcome.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Laryngology, Phoniatrics and Logopedics
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.21-27
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• 2019

Background and Objectives : Voice disorder is recognized as a major problem because it negatively affects the elderly's social participation and quality of life. The purpose of this study was to examine the validity and reliability of Korean aging voice index (KAVI), which assesses the quality of life related to the voice of the elderly. Materials and Method : This study was conducted on 211 elderly people aged 65 years or older : 111 patients with voice disorder (mean age 69.8, range 65-80 years) and 100 nomorphonic participants (mean age 70.6, range 65-82 years). Aging voice index was translated into Korean and used and Korean voice-related quality of life (KVQOL) was conducted to verify KAVI. The validity (item validity, concurrent validity, and construct validity) and reliability (test-retest reliability and internal consistency reliability) of KAVI. Results : The item validity (ICC=0.895) and construct validity (r=0.765) showed a high correlation, respectively. And concurrent validity (r=0.748), test-retest reliability (0.851), and internal consistency reliability (${\alpha}=0.832$) were statistically significant in voice disorder group. In addition, there was a significant difference between the voice disorder and the nomorphonic group in AVI total score. Conclusion : KAVI is a validated and reliable quality of life tool that will be useful for assessing the presence and effectiveness of interventions in clinical settings.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Laryngology, Phoniatrics and Logopedics
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• v.32 no.3
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• pp.124-129
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• 2021

Background and Objectives This study compares Vocal Fatigue Index (VFI) scores according to the presence or absence of external laryngeal tension in hyperfunctional voice disorder. And through this, it is to confirm the usefulness of VFI to hypertension of extrinsic laryngeal muscles. Materials and Method The subjects were 61 female diagnosed with hyperfunctional voice disorder (hypertension group 41, non-hypertension group 20). The author palpated extrinsic laryngeal muscles for evaluation of hypertension and classified them as the presence or absence. The voice measurements were jitter, shimmer, Korean-Voice Handicap Index-10 (K-VHI-10), and Korean-Vocal Fatigue Index (K-VFI). The voice compared were according to the diagnosis and presence of hypertension only for patients with hyperfunctional voice disorder. Results As a result of comparing the voice measurement according to the presence or absence of hypertension, there was no significant difference in the acoustic variables, K-VHI-10 and K-VFI-Total, K-VFI-Fatigue. Whereas, K-VFI-Physical (p=0.006) and K-VFI-Rest (p=0.022) were significantly higher in the hypertension group. Conclusion These results indicate that the hypertension group has more physical discomfort and less voice recovery than the group without hypertension. It means that K-VFI can measure the physical discomfort and limitations of voice recovery due to hypertension of the external laryngeal muscle. The VFI can be used as one of the methods to evaluate the hypertension of the external laryngeal muscle in Hyperfunctional voice disorder.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.7-22
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• 2007

The purpose of this study was to develop a Korean assessment model for the patients with voice disorders. Interviews were conducted with 4 voice therapists and the results were analyzed by using a qualitative, constant-comparative design. According to the three themes emerged from the qualitative analysis, 10 subthemes were derived. The three main themes were 1) consideration on the disordered voice, 2) status quo of instrumental and perceptual evaluation, and 3) suggestions for the other voice therapists. The 10 subthemes can be summarized as the following: 1) judgment centering on the patients, 2) increase of the reliability of instrumental and perceptual evaluation, 3) voice therapists' positive participation in the assessment procedure of voice disorder.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.7-18
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• 2006

Diagnosis of pathological voice is one of the important issues in biomedical applications of speech technology. This study focuses on the discrimination of voice disorder using HMM (Hidden Markov Model) for automatic detection between normal voice and vocal fold disorder voice. This is a non-intrusive, non-expensive and fully automated method using only a speech sample of the subject. Speech data from normal people and patients were collected. Mel-frequency filter cepstral coefficients (MFCCs) were modeled by HMM classifier. Different states (3 states, 5 states and 7 states), 3 mixtures and left to right HMMs were formed. This method gives an accuracy of 93.8% for train data and 91.7% for test data in the discrimination of normal and vocal fold disorder voice for sustained /a/.