ABSTRACT

Purpose: Mobile-based voice therapy (MBVT) has the advantage of being cheaper and more flexible for patients and clinicians compared to traditional PC-based voice therapy. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of MBVT on the voice quality of patients with dysphonia. Methods: Forty-five patients with benign vocal fold lesions were randomly allocated to either the experimental (N=25) or control (N=20) group. The experimental group received MBVT, while the control group received traditional voice therapy (TRVT). Both groups participated in 40 minutes of the intervention per session, once per week, for 8 weeks. Voice evaluation measures included cepstral analysis, acoustic voice quality index, acoustic breathiness index, auditory–perceptual ratings, and a self-rated questionnaire. Analyses compared the voice quality and subjective variables before and after each therapy, as well as between each type of therapy (MBVT vs. TRVT). Results: The results showed that voice quality and patient satisfaction improved in both therapies compared to before therapy, indicating recovery (p<0.01). Therefore, similar to TRVT, MBVT was effective for voice rehabilitation. Conclusions: MBVT could have a positive effect on voice recovery for patients with dysphonia. Therefore, the mobile-based approach is useful to restore pathological voice and allows for a greater number of patients to easily access voice therapy.