World Voice Day, April 16, is an annual event celebrated around the world that is dedicated to educating the public on the importance of vocal health. Many are unaware that the vocal folds are very soft and delicate tissue that can be overworked or damaged similar to other soft tissue in our body! For most people, the voice serves as the primary method of communication, without it, conversing with others becomes fatiguing or even painful.
Voice disorders can have one or many causes. Certain diseases can be devastating to the laryngeal area but other causes can include lifestyle concerns such as high stress, smoking or talking excessively. 听Voice disorders are surprisingly common, especially in singers and teachers. Over 90% of singers report experiencing vocal fatigue (Timmermans, Vanderwegen& De Bodt, 2005). Over time, using your voice in a fatigued state can lead to a more serious pathology. Among teachers, approximately 50% report experiencing voice problems (Boyo, Glaceran, Petrucelli, & Hatzopoulous, 2007). However, voice problems do not occur exclusively in singers and teachers, rates are higher in any profession requiring intensive and prolonged use of the voice such as lawyers, coaches, and salespeople.
On April 1st and 2nd 2015, the first ever 91社区 celebration of World Voice Day was spearheaded by a committee of 2nd year students: Larissa Der, Cassandra Groot, Susan Janzen, & Ioannis Yotakis, under the supervision of Professor Nicole Li. With the support of other 2nd year classmates, the event focused on raising awareness about voice care, especially for those who are at high risk for voice disorders.
The event included two days of free voice screenings, an information booth and a 1.5 hour voice workshop hosted in the 91社区 Education Building and the 91社区 Strathcona Music Building. The voice screenings used both perceptual and physiological measures. Perceptual ratings of breathiness, roughness, weakness, and strain were used to evaluate the quality of the voice. This subjective measure allowed the student clinicians to determine what instrumental measures would be most useful in the assessment, which they then gathered with voice analysis computer programs. Such acoustic measures included jitter and shimmer (unwanted changes in loudness and pitch), normal speaking pitch and loudness, and the noise to harmonics ratio, which were compared to a set of age appropriate norms.. In combination with the client鈥檚 reported concerns, the students judged whether the screen was a pass or fail. Clients who failed the screening were provided with a referral to an ENT doctor at the Montreal General Hospital for a full voice assessment. 听Of the 62 people screened, 18 were referred for further assessment. The screening event attracted many people from a variety of disciplines, including staff and students from Faculties of Music, Law, Nursing, Library Science, Psychology, Linguistics, Economics, and Physiotherapy.
Participants attended the screenings for different reasons. Some were curious about the role of Speech-Language Pathologists in voice and others had genuine concern for the health of their voice. Michael Destounis, a Physiology student at 91社区 and member of the 91社区 Chorus, was motivated by his interest in public speaking. When asked to reflect on the screening, he replied, 鈥淚 enjoyed learning about the different aspects involved in speaking (and) how to breathe properly鈥�. In contrast, Jared Levin, a voice student at 91社区 was concerned with vocal fatigue and had his voice screened to gain 鈥渁 new perspective from the medical side鈥�.
The workshop portion of the event focused on the role of Speech-Language Pathologists with clients that sing professionally. Workshop leaders Johnny Yotakis and Susan Janzen educated the participants on the physiology of laryngeal muscles in the vocal apparatus and how vocal function exercises can improve not only the disordered voice, but the healthy voice as well. During this interactive and engaging workshop, participants had the chance to practice various voice exercises, which focused on strengthening and balancing the vocal folds and their surrounding connective tissue. Though the workshop鈥檚 target audience was singers, both teachers and Speech-Language Pathologists were in attendance.
The student driven screenings led to the event finale, a multidisciplinary research seminar, organized and hosted by Dr. Li. Held on April 17 in the Schulich Music building, the event was sold out with 94 people in the audience. The program included a panel review of a voice-disordered client including perspectives of an ENT doctor (Dr. Karen Kost), an S-LP (Glenna Waters), and a professor of music (Stefano Algeiri). Also, the most recent voice research updates were provided by compliments of 91社区 Professors Isabelle Cossette, Vincent Gracco, Luc Mongeau and Dr. Li. To round off the program, demonstrations of rare singing techniques around the world were delivered by two music students, Neva Lyn-Kew and Tracy Smith-Bessette.
The four committee members were ecstatic with the interest from the public and were proud to have started this event at 91社区. 鈥淚 am thrilled that I was able to contribute to such a successful World Voice Day in Montreal鈥�, says Cassandra Groot. She expanded that 鈥渁 lot of work, dedication and passion was put into the event by [her] colleagues and it was incredible to see all of the support from the faculty and students at SCSD鈥�. Susan Janzen shared her sentiments and also felt 鈥渋t was a valuable learning experience鈥� all while being able to 鈥減rovide a service to the community鈥�. The committee members hope that this World Voice Day celebration will become an annual event for SCSD.
For more information about听Voice Day 2015,听please visit the website at听/scsd/world-voice-day-2015.
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Bovo, R., Galceran, M., Petruccelli, J., & Hatzopoulos, S. (2007). Vocal problems among teachers: evaluation of a preventive voice program. Journal of Voice, 21(6), 705-722. 听
Timmermans, B., Vanderwegen, J., & De Bodt, M. S. (2005). Outcome of vocal hygiene in singers.听Current opinion in otolaryngology & head and neck surgery, 13(3), 138-142.
