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Physiologic Features of Vocal Fatigue: Electromyographic Spectral‐Compression in Laryngeal Muscles
Author(s) -
Boucher Victor J.,
Ahmarani Christian,
Ayad Tareck
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
the laryngoscope
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.181
H-Index - 148
eISSN - 1531-4995
pISSN - 0023-852X
DOI - 10.1097/01.mlg.0000216824.07244.00
Subject(s) - voice , electromyography , medicine , compression (physics) , muscle fatigue , physical medicine and rehabilitation , audiology , speech recognition , computer science , materials science , composite material
Objectives: This study addresses the problem of defining observable attributes of “vocal fatigue” as a physiologic condition. The aim was to determine the applicability of electromyography (EMG) spectral compression in observing fatigue in laryngeal muscles arising from prolonged vocal effort. Study Design: Single institution, nonrandomized, prospective analysis of subjects evaluated in an academic, tertiary care center. Methods: In adapting EMG techniques, we report pretest observations that bear on the choice of voicing tasks serving to induce and estimate muscle fatigue and the selection of muscles that are particularly involved in effortful vocalization. On this basis, an experiment was designed where intramuscular EMG was used to record lateral cricoarytenoid potentials of seven subjects at regular intervals across a 12 to 14 hour period (50 samples per subject). Between each of these samples, the participants were required to produce loud speech for 3 minutes with peaks of 74 dBA at 1 meter. Results: The results show fatigue‐related spectral compression for all subjects and nonlinear changes across time indicating critical values beyond which fatigue is persistent. Conclusion: Spectral compression appears to present a robust attribute of fatigue‐related changes in muscles involved in vocalization. There are several implications with respect to research on the prevention of acquired voice pathologies.