Reliability of Acoustic Measures in Dysphonic Patients With Glottic Insufficiency and Healthy Population: A COVID-19 Perspective.
Seung Jin Lee, Min Seok Kang, Young Min Park and 1 others
PMID 35835646WHAT IT FOUND
Most voice measures stay accurate when patients wear masks, so you can continue standard acoustic testing safely.
However, masks filter high frequencies, which artificially lowers severity scores based on spectral ratios. Do not directly compare these specific scores between masked and unmasked visits.
Key findings
01The majority of voice parameters, including cepstral peak prominence, did not differ significantly between masked and unmasked conditions, and their ability to detect voice disorders remained reliable.
02Spectral ratio measures were higher in the masked condition, which artificially suggests a decrease in voice severity due to the mask filtering out high-frequency noise.
03Directly comparing severity estimates derived from spectral ratios between masked and unmasked assessments is unsafe because the mask alters the underlying acoustic energy.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The study compared two different sets of people rather than testing the same individuals with and without masks, so individual variability could influence the results. The healthy control group was smaller than the patient group. Aerodynamic measures could not be tested because masks prevent accurate airflow assessment. The study only included patients with glottic insufficiency, so results may not apply to other types of voice disorders.
Declared interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume that all voice severity scores are comparable between masked and unmasked conditions. While most measures hold up, indices based on spectral ratios are artificially lowered by the mask, which can make a patient's voice disorder appear less severe than it is.