Objective Evaluation of Presbyphonia: Spectroacoustic Study on 142 Patients with Praat

Abstract

Objectives: Presbyphonia is the sequence of physiological events related to the process of senility of the vocal folds. The aim of our analysis was to provide deeper knowledge of presbyphonia, raising awareness of this condition as well as giving basic suggestions on how to treat related vocal alterations.

Study design: This is a randomized study.

Methods: In 2015, we conducted a study on 182 subjects. Each participant underwent an ENT examination (video-laryngo-stroboscopy and subjective acoustic analysis using the General degree of dysphonia; degree of voice Instability; degree of voice Roughness; degree of voice Breathiness; degree of voice Asthenia; degree of voice Strain (GIRBAS) scale) and a logopedic examination (anamnesis, medical history, and acoustic voice analysis using the free software Praat).

Results: The comparison between the voice of young people and the seniors showed significant differences for the following Praat-analyzed acoustic parameters: modal fundamental frequency (F0) in women (P < 0,0001), fraction of locally unvoiced frames (P < 0,0001), number of voice breaks (P < 0,0001), jitter local (P < 0,0001), jitter local abs (P < 0,0001), jitter rap (P < 0,0001), jitter ppq5 (P < 0,0001), shimmer local (P < 0,0001), shimmer local dB (P < 0,0001), shimmer apq3 (P < 0,0001), shimmer apq5 (P < 0,0001), mean N/H (P < 0,0001), and mean H/N (P < 0,001), for both sexes.

Conclusions: The Praat was confirmed to be a useful tool to detect the existence of the variation of the speech parameters in relation to aging and to quantify statistically significant differences that show a general deterioration in the voice quality, defined numerically. This might lead to a phoniatric treatment or speech therapy, which could improve patients' quality of life, leading to better vocal performance and social and communicative interaction.

Keywords: Praat; aging voice; dysphonia; presbyphonia; voice analysis.