Hyposalivation Affecting Womens' Voice

Abstract

Objectives: Balanced hydration is crucial for optimal physiological function, whereas hypohydration may cause adverse effects. Like many other organs, the larynx is negatively affected by hypohydration, potentially affecting voice production. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine voice properties in women diagnosed with dry-mouth.

Methods: Twenty-four women diagnosed with hyposalivation and 24 age-matched controls were recruited. All participants underwent three sialometry tests for quantifying oral-dryness. These tests were conducted in three conditions: after 2-hour fasting, after gustatory salivary stimulation and after drinking water. After each sialometry, participants were recorded while producing the vowels /a/ and /i/, and during a standardized reading task. A basic set of acoustic measures was extracted from these recordings. Self-evaluation of voice was performed using the VHI-10 questionnaire; and listeners' perception of the voice was performed by five professional judges who rated the recordings perceptually, using the GRBAS scale.

Results: Significant group differences were found in fundamental frequency and jitter, but not in shimmer and noise-to-harmonic ratio (corrected P < 0.05). The participants in the hyposalivation group exhibited higher scores on the VHI-10 questionnaire compared to the control group (P = 0.002), and the judges perceptually rated their voices higher on the Grade and Roughness scales (0.03 ≤ P ≤ 0.04). In contrast with the significant group differences, no significant differences were found between the three study conditions.

Conclusions: Women suffering from oral-dryness were shown to exhibit degradation in voice quality, evident in both acoustic, perceptual and self-evaluation measures. However, in this paradigm, short-term superficial hydration was not shown to elicit a significant improvement in voice properties. These findings highlight the importance of consistent oral-hydration for voice, especially among people suffering from hyposalivation.

Keywords: Hydration; Hyposalivation; Oral-dryness; Voice; Xerostomia.