Clinical Usefulness of Korean Items for the Differential Diagnosis of Adductor Spasmodic Dysphonia

Background and Objectives Adductor spasmodic dysphonia (ADSD) is a disease in which symptoms such as voice break, strained voice, and voice tremor occur during vocalization due to abnormal spasms of the adductor muscles of the vocal cords. In this study, we aimed to confirm the clinical effectiveness of recently developed Korean items for the differential diagnosis of ADSD and muscle tension dysphonia (MTD).Materials and Method Twenty patients who were diagnosed with ADSD and improved with treatment were set as the ADSD group, 7 patients diagnosed with MTD and received voice therapy as the MTD group, and 7 normal patients without voice disorders were set as the control group, and the medical records and voice test results were compared and analyzed. Recently developed Korean questions were read by the patient, and the degree of voice tremor, strained voice was evaluated. In addition, the recorded voice was analyzed with a spectrogram.Results A statistically significant difference between the two patient groups was confirmed in the auditory perceptual evaluation of voiced sentences and phrases, tense voiceless sentences and phrases of Korean items. Spectrogram analysis revealed that voice breaks were more frequent in the ADSD group during voiced sentences, and wide-spaced vertical striations were more prominent in the ADSD group during voiced sentences, phrases, and tense voiceless phrases.Conclusion It was confirmed that Korean items for the differential diagnosis of ADSD are useful in identifying speech task specificities in ADSD patients through spectrogram analysis as well as auditory perceptual evaluation.