Objective: The airflow is the fuel of the voice and and including respiratory training in the rehabilitation of dysphonia is extremely important to achieve homeostasis of the phonatory system. Singing requires much more refined adjustments than just speaking; for example, sustaining notes for a long time and even at high loudness. Considering this it is even more important to train breathing in singers with vocal problems. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of respiratory training alone or in combination with conventional therapy in singers with behavioral dysphonia.
Methods: Forty female singers with behavioral dysphonia participated and were randomized into two distinct therapeutic groups and received treatment for six weeks. Group 1: respiratory training; Group 2: respiratory training associated with conventional vocal training. For respiratory training, an incentive spirometer was used, as well as training in the sustained emission of the fricative phoneme /s/ at maximum phonation time, associated with the use of an elastic band whose load was progressively increased. For conventional vocal training, vocal function exercises were used. The participants performed the exercises twice a day at home and went to the clinic once a week. The evaluation before and after treatment consisted of acoustic and aerodynamic analysis of the voice, auditory-perceptual evaluation of vocal quality, and visual-perceptual evaluation of the laryngeal image with high-speed videolaryngoscopy.
Results and conclusions: We will present the results of the intra-group and inter-group comparison. The results are under analysis and will be finalized on November 30, 2024. We believe that the results demonstrate the great importance of respiratory training for dysphonic singers and how much this training can impact vocal improvement.