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A Comparative Study of Acoustic Characteristics of the Voice Before and After Tonsillectomy



Ghaemi H1 ; Sobhanirad D2 ; Soleymani Z1 ; Khazaeni K3 ; Safaeyan S2 ; Zadeh EA2
Authors
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Authors Affiliations
  1. 1. Dept. of speech therapy, School of rehabilitation, Tehran university of medical sciences, Tehran, Iran
  2. 2. Dept. of speech therapy, School of paramedical sciences, Mashhad university of medical sciences, Mashhad, Iran
  3. 3. Dept. of otorhinolaryngology, Medicine school, Mashhad university of medical sciences, Mashhad, Iran

Source: IIOAB Journal Published:2016

Abstract

Introduction: tonsillectomy as one the most common surgeries in children is recommended.Since tonsillectomy causes a change in the shape and size of the inferior areas of glottis, researchers are looking for the presence or absence of significant difference in the acoustic and perceptual characteristic of the voice before and after tonsillectomy. Methods: It’s a descriptive-analytical study. 15 patients aged 3 to 10 years old with tonsillitis were participated by available sampling.Having a normal IQ and without the history of certain diseases, neurologic problems or structural problems of head and face and voice disorder before the surgery.Before surgery as well as 3 to 4 weeks after that, voice samples of patients including 6 Persian vowels of /ae/, /e/, /o/, /a/, /i/ and /u/ were recorded in an acoustic room.Recording and analysis of the collected data were done by the software of MDVP/Computerized Speech Lab (CSL) model KAY 4500. The examined acoustic parameters in this study include fundamental frequency average, construction formant of F1, F2, F3, jitter, shimmer and harmonic-to-noise ratio (NHR).The acoustic data were analyzed in SPSS.22 software. Results: variation of F1 after the surgery was reducing and these variation were increasing regarding the vowel /u/ and /i/ only and variation of the F3 for all vowels (except /ae/ and /e/) were increasing.Mean variation of the fundamental frequency before and after the surgery for the vowel /ae/ (p-value=0.03), the vowel /e/ (p-value<0.01) and the vowel /i/ (p-value<0.01) has a significant difference, while for the vowels /o/, /a/ and /u/, there was not a significant difference before and after the surgery (p-value>0.05).The mean variation of jitter was reduced after surgery in all sounds. Shimmer average was decreased for all sounds except /e/ and /u/. NHR was in normal distributed only for two sounds; so that these changes for the vowel /o/ is reducing and for the vowel /e/ was increasing. However, changes in any type of these variables were not significant (p-value>0.05). Conclusion: It can be concluded from this study that an objective evaluation of the voice which was used in this study, showed the little effect of tonsillectomy on the acoustic parameters and so the voice quality. So acoustic analysis of voice can be served as a tool to help the ear, throat and nose specialists and predict the effect of surgery on the probable recovery of the patient situation. © 2016, Institute of Integrative Omics and Applied Biotechnology. All rights reserved.