ARTICULATION AND SPEECH HABITS IN PATIENTS WITH MUSCLE TENSIONDYSPHONIA

Abstract

BACKGROUND Muscle tension dysphonia (MTD) is a functional voice disorder characterized by irregularphonatory muscles' activity. It is a cause for hoarseness in almost one half of dysphonicpatients. We wanted to find out whether there are particularities in voice-speech production in patients with MTD, which are not observed in subjects without voice disorders orappear in a lesser extent. METHODS There were 30 subjects with MTD (27 women, 3 men) and 30 control subjects of the sameage and gender without voice disorders included in the study. Two speech and languagepathologists assessed the phonation-speech characteristics in all participants during spontaneous speech and during describing a picture. The basic speech elements and the way ofspeaking (speech tempo, speech loudness, articulation, the presence of excessive muscleactivity of articulation organs) were compared between the patients with MTD and thecontrol group. RESULTS Unusual motor patterns, articulation deviations and increased muscle tension whenspeaking were significantly more frequent in patients with MTD than in the group ofsubjects without voice disorders. The results of our study showed that a majority of patientswith MTD spoke too fast, did not have an adjusted breathing and phonation, and that halfof the patients with MTD had unusual phonation and/or articulation muscles' activity. CONCLUSIONS Unusual motor patterns, articulation deviations and increased phonation and articulation muscles' tension can cause the occurrence of functional voice disorder, support andprolong its persistence. This fact must be taken into consideration when planning andcarrying out the voice therapy. In the professional literature a central nervous systemdisorder at the level of motor planning and processing of speech is mentioned as one of thepossible reasons for functional voice disorders. However it is difficult to estimate what isthe primary and what is the secondary disorder - compensatory behaviour. In order to getthe answer to this question the study should be performed on a greater number of subjects,and detailed observation and the inclusion of neuro-physiological methods should benecessary