| Summary: | 碩士 === 長庚大學 === 傳統中國醫學研究所 === 93 === Listening examination is one of the major diagnostic methods in traditional Chinese medicine, however, it needs objective documentation and quantitative evaluations. In this study, we assessed the voice in patients with phlegm syndrome (rhinosinusitis) versus non-phlegm controls by means of computerized acoustic analysis system.
Eighty two (30 female, 52 male) patients and sixty (30 female, 30 male) controls were enrolled for voice analysis. Subjects were asked to phonate /a/ and /m/ for at least 4 seconds at their conversational pitch and intensity in a voice-isolated room. Approximately 2 seconds from the first second of each recording was subjected to analysis. Thirty acoustic parameters of multi-dimensional voice program (MDVP) and another ten of resonance were assessed. The parameters of MDVP were classified into 5 groups: (1) fundamental frequency information; (2) frequency perturbation; (3) amplitude perturbation; (4) noise and tremor evaluation; (5) voice break, subharmonic, and voice irregularity. The parameters of resonance were classified into 2 groups: (1) formant frequency (F1to F4); (2) differences in formant frequencies.
There were 22 significantly different (p<0.05) parameters in female group and 20 in male group. Rhinosinusitis possibly affected the voice quality by altering the shape of voice tract and the viscosity of vocal folds. By using linear discriminant function, we could distinguish rhinosinusitis from non-rhinosinusitis with 86.7% in female group and 93.9% in male group.
Voice analysis may be a simple, noninvasive procedure in conventional diagnosis instead of the radiation exposure. Our results suggested that it is a potential method in both diagnosis and outcome evaluation for rhinosinusitis. For other phlegm syndrome in traditional Chinese medicine other than rhinosinusitis, the sensitivity and feasibility of voice analysis allow further evaluation.
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