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The vocal intelligibility in people with laryngectomy that communicate with erygmophony

Authors

  • María José Fernández G. Logopeda Unidad de Foniatría y Logopedia del Hospital Universitario Central de Asturias Universidad de Oviedo
  • Sara Fernández G. Logopeda
  • Paloma Sirgo R. Logopeda Unidad de Foniatría y Logopedia del Hospital Universitario Central de Asturias
  • Liliana Santamarina R. Logopeda Unidad de Foniatría y Logopedia del Hospital Universitario Central de Asturias
  • César Álvarez M. Médico Servicio de Otorrinolaringología del Hospital Universitario Central de Asturias Universidad de Oviedo

Abstract

People who have had a total laryngectomy and have completely extirpated their larynx have, in a variable degree, altered the functions of this organ: sphincter, respiratory, and vocal. Regarding the latter and its final product: the voice, the loss is complete, so it is necessary to rehabilitate this function so that the person can communicate. The aim of this work is to evaluate the vocal intelligibility of laryngectomized individuals who have been rehabilitated with erygmophony. Material and method: prospective design in 17 laryngectomized individuals that use the erygmophonic voice to communicate. They were studied with VHI-30, narrow band spectrogram, perceptual evaluation (GRABS and CAPE-V) and, in a novel way, assessing the vocal intelligibility through the reading and recognition of bisyllabic words. Results: VHI-30 shows that laryngectomized individuals perceive their voice as a mild and moderate limitation. The spectrogram shows substantial differences between the erygmophonic voice and the laryngeal physiological voice. Perceptual evaluation indicates moderate/severe affectation in GRABS and medium/severe involvement in CAPE-V. In the verbal intelligibility, the medium-low values (88%) are predominant, but there are patients with high values (12%). No statistically significant relationships were found between VHI-30, perceptual evaluation, and verbal intelligibility. Conclusions: the evaluation of the intelligibility of the erygmophonic voice provides the rehabilitator with useful and easy-to-read data on the communicative capacity of persons with total laryngectomy, complementing other objective (spectrogram) and subjective assessment procedures (VHI-30, GRABS and CAPE-V).

Keywords:

laryngeal cancer, spectrogram, perceptual analysis, speech intelligibility, erigmophonic voice