Resonance Tube Voice Therapy Proves Effective Among Patients With Parkinson Disease

Findings showed individuals with Parkinson disease (PD) experienced an increase in vocal intensity and long-term acoustic parameters, reduction of voice symptoms, improved overall degree of vocal quality, and an increase in voice-related quality of life after resonance tube phonation in voice therapy.

Of the 14 individuals with PD included in an intra-subject comparative controlled clinical trial, 10 were men with a mean age of 66.1 years and 4 were women with a mean age of 73.75 years. Over a 4-week span, study participants underwent 45-minute sessions of voice therapy twice a week, for a total of 8 sessions that included semi-occluded vocal tract exercises and phonation method in a resonance tube (glass 27 cm x 9 mm) in water.

“Tube depth in water ranged from 2 cm to 9 cm, as the difficulty in carrying out the exercises increased (usual pitch, high pitch, low pitch, ascending/descending glissandos), followed by sentence production,” explained the authors.

Assessments were made at baseline, after 30 days without intervention, and 1 day following 8 intervention sessions.

Researchers assessed acoustic parameters (Smoothed Cepstral Peak Prominence–CPPs, alpha ratio, and L1-L0 difference); vocal intensity; auditory-perceptual analysis of the overall degree of vocal quality deviation; voice symptoms (Voice Symptom Scale protocol - VoiSS) and voice-related quality of life (Voice-Related Quality of Life Protocol–V-RQOL).

“Intervention significantly increased: vocal intensity, L1-L0 value of vowel /a/ and counting, CPP value in counting, and decreased: the overall degree of vocal quality deviation in 78% of participants, the total score of VoiSS protocol, the limitation, and emotional subscales,” reported study authors. “In addition, the intervention increased the score of all the domains of V-RQOL protocol - physical, socio-emotional, and total.”

Reference:
dos Santos AP, Shevon Troche M, Berretin-Felix G, Barbieri FA, Brasolotto AG, Alves Silverio KC. Effects of resonance tube voice therapy on Parkinson’s disease: clinical trial. J Voice. Published online June 5, 2022. doi:10.1016/j.voice.2022.04.016