Functional Voice disorders

Question 1

What is a voice disorder?

Answer 1

An issue with one’s voice that affects their quality of life and communication. It involves a listener’s perception of a speaker’s voice, particularly its quality, pitch, and loudness, as being different from what is expected given their gender, age, cultural background, and geographical location. It also involves an issue with the functioning and/or structure of the speaker’s laryngeal mechanism

Question 2

What are physical characteristics of a functional (a.k.a. inorganic) voice disorder?

Answer 2

Muscles of the larynx and respiratory system are fatigued; supporting areas and connective tissues are strained; large amount of effort used to produce little bit of voice.

Question 3

What are the two broad categories of functional voice disorders?

Answer 3

psychogenic dysphonia and muscle tension dysphonia (a.k.a., vocal hyperfunction)

Question 4

What are characteristics of MTD?

Answer 4

Persistent; atypical tension of larynx and musculoskeletons due to an imbalance of speech subsystems; can be treated through behavior modification via voice therapy; hyperfunctioning of true/false vocal cords during vibrations

Question 5

What is primary MTD?

Answer 5

MTD that occurs without the presence of a physical, neurological, or psychological impairment.

Question 6

What is secondary MTD?

Answer 6

MTD that is a consequence of a physical, neurological, or psychological impairment

Question 7

What are features of a normal voice?

Answer 7

Voice is used healthily; they can speak over background noise; their voice does not distract the listener from the message; they can use their voice to express emotions; the voice represents who the person is

Question 8

What factors contribute to the occurrence of MTD?

Answer 8

poor body posture, especially with their neck and shoulder muscles; coughing or throat clearning; laryngoesophageal reflux; using voice alot; using a loud voice alot; being stressed for long periods of time

Question 9

What is somatization dysphonia?

Answer 9

A type of psychogenic dysphonia whose symptoms are caused by conversion disorder. Physical trauma must be ruled out before being diagnosed with this disorder

Question 10

What is a psychogenic voice disorder?

Answer 10

A functional type of voice disorder in which issues with voice stem from psychological issues

Question 11

What does muscle tension dysphonia sound like?

Answer 11

Breathy; strained abnormal pitch that occurs often; Phonation breaks; reduced loudness, especially on extreme pitch ranges

Question 12

What anatomy is involved in MTD?

Answer 12

Larynx is either held highly along with the tightly held body of the tongue or larynx is held lowly with the tightly held sternocleidomastoid muscle; reduced cricothyroid muscle movementl tightly held thyrohyoid membrane

Question 13

What can develop as a result of excessive MTD?

Answer 13

vocal nodules, vocal polyps, reinke’s edema, laryngitis

Question 14

What are the physical symptoms of someone with MTD?

Answer 14

licking of lips; unplanned taking of breaths; swallowing (complain of lump in their throat); throat clearing and coughing; stretching of head, neck, and shoulder muscles; sipping water

Question 15

What are the symptoms of chronic laryngitis?

Answer 15

hoarse, breathy, harsh, strained, and low-pitched

Question 16

What are the physical signs of Reinke’s Edema? What can contribute to its occurrence?

Answer 16

Bilateral swollen VFs due to gelatinous material; smoking and laryngoesophageal reflux

Question 16

If someone has puberphonia, then he or she has __________ . Puberphonia is what type of disorder?

Answer 16

elevated high pitched voice (i.e., falsetto) or a strained voice quality; psychogenic voice disorder

Question 16

What are the voice symptoms of someone with psychogenic aphonia? What causes psychogenic aphonia

Answer 16

they lack voice even though their speech has the prosody and pitch of normal speech; their VFs remained apart during phonation; voice sounds breathy; acute or chronic psychological trauma

Question 17

A person with which type of functional voice disorder would be unwilling to participate in voice therapy?

Answer 17

psychogenic aphonia

Question 18

Someone with conversion disorder may have symptoms consistent with what functional voice disorder? What must be true before diagnosing someone with this disorder?

Answer 18

somatization dysphonia; no physical impairments are documented.

Question 19

What are the symptoms of somatization dysphonia?

Answer 19

neck and shoulder pain with stiffness; laryngeal pain; shortness of breath; depression; extreme vocal fatigue

Question 20

What issue can the false VFs have on phonation? What is the definition of this issue? What is a symptom of it?What other voice disorder can cause this symptom?

Answer 20

ventricular dysphonia - interference of false VFs during phonation; diplophonia or double voice; MTD can cause diplophonia

Question 21

What is diplophonia?

Answer 21

production of two different frequencies due to vibration of both true and false vocal folds

Question 22

What are the voice characteristics of someone with vocal nodules or vocal polyps?

Answer 22

decreased habitual pitch and pitch range; decrease habitual loudness and dynamic range; breathiness and air waste; hoarseness; vocal fatigue