|
Guidelines for Voice Therapy
As with any treatment, voice therapy is only successful when the cause of a patient's voice disorder is correctly identified. All factors must be carefully weighed to determine whether voice therapy should serve as a primary or an additional form of treatment.
There are three basic goals of voice therapy:
- Reduce or eliminate the voice disorder
- Prevent recurrence of the voice disorder
- Rehabilitate and improve vocal function to reduce or eliminate the symptoms of the voice disorder
To reach these goals speech-language pathologists have developed several general guidelines for voice therapy, as well as a number of specific treatment techniques/regimens.
Guideline #1: Adequate Patient Education
The first guideline for voice therapy is to ensure that patients understand how normal voice is produced, how their specific disorders disrupt the ability to vocalize and/or speak, and what behaviors promote good vocal health as opposed to those that can harm voice.
Rationale: Properly educating patients about the issues involved in their voice disorder establishes patient confidence in the caregiver's ability to provide successful treatment. It also arms patients with important knowledge about their disorder, which helps dispel any misconceptions they may have and defines how they can help facilitate successful treatment.
Guideline #2: Establishing the Expectations of Therapy
The second guideline is to ensure that patients set goals for voice therapy that are realistic given the nature and severity of their voice disorder. In general, voice therapy is aimed at:
- Returning vocal function to a level at which patients can consistently fulfill their daily voice and/or speech communication needs
- Minimize or eliminate interference due to vocal dysfunction (e.g., inappropriate pitch, loudness, fatigue, quality problems, etc.)
Rationale: Setting unrealistic goals leads to patient perception of failure. Patients can become discouraged and/or disenchanted with the therapy process, negatively impacting the ultimate results that are achieved. For example, patients who mistakenly believe that voice therapy will transform their voice into that of a professional singer are disappointed when months of treatment do not result in this outcome.
Note: Not all voice patients will achieve "normal" voices as a result of therapy.
Guideline #3: Patient Compliance and Dedication
The third guideline is to promote motivation and dedication on the part of patients to adhere to the demands of voice therapy (e.g., home practice) and work diligently to successfully use newly learned behaviors and techniques in the real world.
Rationale: The most common reason cited for the failure of voice therapy is patient non-compliance. Simply put, without the strictest adherence to voice therapy regimes and the instructions of the voice therapist, treatment will fail.
 Key Information
A Note on Vocal Hygiene
Though not a specific guideline of voice therapy, proper vocal hygiene is an important aspect of any voice therapy regimen that is vital for a successful outcome. In general, vocal hygiene refers to a variety of actions that help patients care for their voice and the physical structures that help produce voice. (For more information, see Prevention.)
Specifically, vocal hygiene includes the following types of activities:
- Limiting misuse (or abuse) of the voice
- Proper hydration (to keep the vocal folds healthy)
- Avoiding chemicals or other substances that may irritate the voice (e.g., alcohol, cigarette smoke, highly acidic foods, and extremely fatty foods)
|
