Voice-Related Quality of Life, Acoustic, Aerodynamic Features of Older Adults With and Without Presbyphonia: A Preliminary Study
Purpose
This study aimed to investigate the voice-related quality of life, acoustic, aerodynamic features and the correlation between the self-evaluation and objective parameters of Cantonese-speaking older adults with and without presbyphonia.
Methods
Data were collected from 28 Cantonese-speaking older adults with presbyphonia and 6 vocally heathy participants. Acoustic parameters (e.g., Cepstral Peak Prominence, Noise-to-Harmonics Ratio, fundamental frequency) of connected speech and aerodynamic measures (e.g., glottal airflow, estimated subglottal pressure) were recorded. Participants also completed the Cantonese-version of Aging Voice Index (AVI) to assess the impacts of voice problems on their daily activities. Descriptive statistics were calculated for all parameters. Group comparisons were performed using independent samples t-tests. Pearson correlations examined relationships between acoustic/aerodynamic parameters and AVI scores.
Results
The analysis of all participants indicated the correlations between all voice parameters and quality of life (Aging Voice Index, AVI) were not statistically significant (p_0.05). Voice measures such as Mean F0, MPT, and mean airflow exhibited differences between elderly individuals with and without presbyphonia, but none reached statistical significance (p > 0.05). However, effect size analyses suggested moderate effect sizes (Cohen’s d ranging from 0.45 to 0.57) for parameters including airflow, habitual SPL, Min F0 and AVI, indicating potential significance with larger samples.
Conclusions
The self-assessed voice-related quality of life in older adults is not associated with their objective voice parameters. This suggests that their perceptions of the impact of aging voice may not be reflective of their actual voice performance. No objective parameters have been identified as sensitive indicators of voice-related quality of life in the elderly. The Aging Voice Index and objective voice measures may capture different aspects of aging voice. It is essential to raise awareness and promote voice care among the elderly to help mitigate the aging progress of their voice. Further research with larger samples and more comprehensive voice data is needed to explore these relationships in depth, and data collection is now continuing to enhance the understanding.