The Study of Combined Voice Therapy with Intralaryngeal Injection

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Though voice therapy is proven to be effective in academia, treatment results and satisfaction level are inconsistent in clinics. The inconsistency may rise from diverse vocal cords misuse patterns in patient population as they suffer from different diseases or have bad phonation habits. In order to overcome the limitation, we uniformized patients' vocal cords with injection laryngoplasty prior to voice therapy. The efficacy of voice therapy and consistency in treatment results after injection laryngoplasty were assessed. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Patients diagnosed with vocal nodules were either treated with injection laryngoplasty followed by voice therapy (combined treatment group) or voice therapy only (voice therapy group). Each group consisted of 15 patients. Acoustic measures (jitter, shimmer, NHR), aerodynamic measures (MPT, Psub, MAFR), and subjective auditory conscious measures (K-VHI, K-VRQOL) between two groups were analyzed. RESULTS: After treatments, both groups improved in terms of acoustic, aerodynamic, and subjective auditory conscious measures compared to pre-treatment. Combined treatment group had statistically significantly greater improvement in shimmer, P in K-VHI, and PF in K-VRQOL compared to voice therapy group. CONCLUSION: Injection laryngoplasty treatment prior to voice therapy synergizes in treating patients compared to voice therapy only.