Vol.95 No.12 contentsPRACTICA OTO-RHINO-LARYNGOLOGICA
Vol. 95 No. 12 December 2002
Voice Therapy for Adductor Spasmodic Dysphonia
Aki Taguchi, Masamitsu Hyodo and Joji Kobayashi
(Ehime University)
Adductor spasmodic dysphonia is a phonatory disorder of uncertain etiology. Appropriate treatment for this disease remains controversial. Various surgical procedures have been reported including selective section of the recurrent laryngeal nerve branch, type 2 thyroplasty, TA myectomy and botulinum toxin injection into the thyroarytenoid (TA) muscle. Voice therapy has been introduced as a conservative therapy for the disease. We also treated four patients by voice therapy, and favorable results were obtained. The main therapeutic procedure was relaxation exercise. Two patients showed complete improvement after several months' treatment. Partial improvement was obtained in one patient. The post-treatment courses have been good in the 3 patients without recurrence. Although voice therapy requires long-term treatment, we suggest this approach should be considered when choosing of treatment for adductor spasmodic dysphonia.
Key words : adductor spasmodic dysphonia, voice therapy, treatment