Valoración de los cambios en la fuente glótica: estudio de un caso pre / post- tratamiento en pliegues vocales

Actualmente existe un interés creciente por el estudio de la voz. Cada vez son más lo recursos destinados a este campo de investigación en busca nuevos métodos que faciliten su estudio, evaluación y diagnóstico. Es sabido que la onda mucosa es fundamental en el proceso de producción de la voz, determinando la calidad de la misma. De tal forma que cuando existe una patología la cantidad de onda mucosa y el modelo dinámico de los pliegues vocales se ve alterado. El presente trabajo usa un método de filtrado inverso para obtener la fuente glótica, de la cual posteriormente se extraerá el correlato de la onda mucosa. A través del estudio de un caso clínico, correspondiente a un pólipo unilateral, se usa este método para valorar las alteraciones que la patología ha causado en la dinámica de los pliegues vocales y en la onda mucosa

Voice Disorders Secondary to Thyroidectomy: A Case Study

The thyroid is an important gland that aids in development. Located anteriorly at the base of the neck, the thyroid produces hormones that regulate metabolism. Thyroid dysfunction can lead to excess or reduced production of hormones known as hyper and hypothyroidism. Usually affecting women, hyper and hypothyroidism can be life-threatening. A well-known treatment is a thyroidectomy, or removal of the thyroid gland. Many people report vocal change secondary to thyroidectomy. Dysfunction can result from intubation during surgery or damage to laryngeal nerves and/or muscles. A participant’s low intensity and difficulty with projection prompted a case-study to examine the laryngeal area for differences. KayPENTAX Visi-Pitch and Videostrobe instrumentation were utilized to provide instant video feedback and acoustic parameters that were compared to typical parameters/structures. Using videostroboscopy, a rigid scope was placed over the base of the tongue containing a miniature camera. The participant phonated syllables such as “ee” and “ah” from low to high pitch ranges at Cleveland State University (CSU). A voice sample was also analyzed through Visi-Pitch instrumentation to assess parameters including jitter, shimmer, and fundamental frequency among others. Structural and acoustic parameters from Cleveland State were compared to results from an Ear, Nose, and Throat (ENT) doctor also utilizing videostroboscopy. Both CSU and ENT results note structural and acoustic differences despite no reported laryngeal nerve damage post-thyroidectomy

Voice Disorders Secondary to Thyroidectomy: A Case Study

The thyroid is an important gland that aids in development. Located anteriorly at the base of the neck, the thyroid produces hormones that regulate metabolism. Thyroid dysfunction can lead to excess or reduced production of hormones known as hyper and hypothyroidism. Usually affecting women, hyper and hypothyroidism can be life-threatening. A well-known treatment is a thyroidectomy, or removal of the thyroid gland. Many people report vocal change secondary to thyroidectomy. Dysfunction can result from intubation during surgery or damage to laryngeal nerves and/or muscles. A participant’s low intensity and difficulty with projection prompted a case-study to examine the laryngeal area for differences. KayPENTAX Visi-Pitch and Videostrobe instrumentation were utilized to provide instant video feedback and acoustic parameters that were compared to typical parameters/structures. Using videostroboscopy, a rigid scope was placed over the base of the tongue containing a miniature camera. The participant phonated syllables such as “ee” and “ah” from low to high pitch ranges at Cleveland State University (CSU). A voice sample was also analyzed through Visi-Pitch instrumentation to assess parameters including jitter, shimmer, and fundamental frequency among others. Structural and acoustic parameters from Cleveland State were compared to results from an Ear, Nose, and Throat (ENT) doctor also utilizing videostroboscopy. Both CSU and ENT results note structural and acoustic differences despite no reported laryngeal nerve damage post-thyroidectomy

Models and analysis of vocal emissions for biomedical applications: 5th International Workshop: December 13-15, 2007, Firenze, Italy

The MAVEBA Workshop proceedings, held on a biannual basis, collect the scientific papers presented both as oral and poster contributions, during the conference. The main subjects are: development of theoretical and mechanical models as an aid to the study of main phonatory dysfunctions, as well as the biomedical engineering methods for the analysis of voice signals and images, as a support to clinical diagnosis and classification of vocal pathologies. The Workshop has the sponsorship of: Ente Cassa Risparmio di Firenze, COST Action 2103, Biomedical Signal Processing and Control Journal (Elsevier Eds.), IEEE Biomedical Engineering Soc. Special Issues of International Journals have been, and will be, published, collecting selected papers from the conference

INVESTIGATING THE EFFICACY OF VOCAL FUNCTION EXERCISES IN IMPROVING VOCAL FUNCTION IN ADULTS IRRADIATED FOR LARYNGEAL CANCERS: A THREE PART DISSERTATION

Deterioration in voice quality following radiation therapy for the treatment of laryngeal cancers (LC) is well documented in literature. The majority of studies show that these voice problems are long term and in some cases permanent. Deterioration in voice quality, especially over a period of time could lead to significant communication difficulties in daily life or in some cases could even result in loss of profession. Despite the negative effects of radiation therapy on voice quality being well documented, few studies have focused on the efficacy of voice therapy in the irradiated LC population. The purpose of this study was to investigate the efficacy of a well researched, evidence based voice therapy approach, known as Vocal Function Exercises (VFEs) in improving vocal function in patients who have been irradiated for LCs. The present study conducted in three systematic stages with distinct and related study aims. The first involved characterizing the head and neck cancer treatment seeking population at the University of Kentucky (UK). Stage 2 involved characterizing vocal function following irradiation for LC using a multidimensional assessment approach. Stage 3 was a phase 2 clinical trial aimed at treating these deficits in vocal function identified through stage 2 using a systematic evidence based voice therapy approach, Vocal Function Exercises. For the phase 2 clinical trial, the comparison group received vocal hygiene (VH) counseling. Observations from stage 1 showed that majority of patients from the treatment seeking population at UK between a 3 year time period from 2008 to 2010 were diagnosed with laryngeal cancers and were treated with chemoradiation therapy. Stage 2 demonstrated a multidimensional deterioration in vocal function following radiation therapy for laryngeal cancers. Stage 3 demonstrated a significant improvement in vocal function across the primary outcome measure (Voice Handicap Index) as a result of VFE+VH. Improvements were also seen in select parameters across the five domains of voice assessment in the VFE group. No significant improvements were observed in the vocal hygiene group in any parameters in each domain of voice assessment. Our study demonstrated adults irradiated for laryngeal cancers demonstrated a multi-dimensional deterioration of vocal function. These changes were long term since study participants were 2- 7 years post radiation therapy. Implementation of VFE+VH demonstrated a significant improvement in voice related quality of life and select parameters across the five domains of voice assessment. The present study demonstrated promising preliminary evidence for the use of VFE+VH to improve vocal function in patients irradiated for laryngeal cancers

Cepstral- and Spectral-Based Acoustic Measures of Normal Voices

A review of recent literature suggested that cepstral- and spectral-based acoustic measures showed good potential as objective measures of dysphonia for clinical application. However, the small numbers of normal subjects in previous research and wide age ranges prevent a good estimation of the performance of normal speakers of various ages on these measures. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to provide normative data for Long-Term Average spectral- and cepstral-based measures for both men and women in two different age groups to aid clinicians with assessing and treating voice disorders. Sixty participants consisting of fifteen males and fifteen females, ages 20-30 years, and fifteen males and fifteen females, ages 40-50 years contributed speech samples to be analyzed in this study. Speakers were asked to sustain the vowels /a/ and /i/, read out loud four CAPE-V stimulus sentences, and the 2nd and 3rd sentence of the Rainbow Passage. Dependent variables were Cepstral Peak Prominence (CPP), Low-to-High Spectral Ratio (L/H spectral ratio), and Cepstral Peak Prominence Fundamental Frequency (CPP F0) for both vowels and connected speech. Male voice quality (CPP and L/H spectral ratio) was better in vowels /a/ and /i/, but female voice quality was better (CPP values) for connected speech. Age did not affect voice quality for vowels /a/ and /i/; however, it did affect it for connected speech. Younger speakers had better voice quality (CPP) than older speakers. In general, for both vowels and connected speech, younger women had markedly higher CPP F0 values than older women, while older men had slightly higher CPP F0 values compared to younger men. It was concluded that separate normative data should be applied clinically for all four age/gender groups. The maximum limit of the ADSV extraction range for male participants should be changed from 300 Hz to 200 Hz for connected speech readings to obtain accurate CPP F0 measures. Furthermore, due to limited research, data should be analyzed both with and without vocalic detection until it becomes clear which one is more valid. Further research is recommended to improve both the procedures and reference data available for voice quality

Feature selection in pathological voice classification using dinamyc of component analysis

This paper presents a methodology for the reduction of the training space based on the analysis of the variation of the linear components of the acoustic features. The methodology is applied to the automatic detection of voice disorders by means of stochastic dynamic models. The acoustic features used to model the speech are: MFCC, HNR, GNE, NNE and the energy envelopes. The feature extraction is carried out by means of PCA, and classification is done using discrete and continuous HMMs. The results showed a direct relationship between the principal directions (feature weights) and the classification performance. The dynamic feature analysis by means of PCA reduces the dimension of the original feature space while the topological complexity of the dynamic classifier remains unchanged. The experiments were tested with Kay Elemetrics (DB1) and UPM (DB2) databases. Results showed 91% of accuracy with 30% of computational cost reduction for DB1