Tele-practice Versus In-Person Voice Therapy: Impacts on Vocal Characteristics of Voice Actors.

Abstract

Background: Voice actors are a group of professional voice users who have heavy vocal demands in their profession and, as a result, experience a high percentage of vocal complaints. This study aimed to assess the impact of tele-practice compared to in-person voice therapy on various voice characteristics in voice actors.

Methods: A pilot clinical trial was carried out on 14 voice actors and actresses who were allocated to two groups. All participants received the same voice therapy interventions for 60 minutes per session, three sessions per week for 6 weeks. Sessions for one group were held in person, while the other group received therapy remotely. The acoustic measurements, aerodynamic measurements, auditory-perceptual judgment, and self-perceived measurements as outcome measures were assessed before treatment, post-treatment, and four weeks after the end of the treatment for each group. Repeated measure ANOVA was applied to within-groups comparisons, and the Kruskal-Wallis test was used to between-group comparisons.

Results: Shimmer, MPT, CAPE-V scores, VTD scores, and VHI scores improved significantly post-treatment and showed sustained improvement over time in both groups. Fundamental frequency, jitter, harmonic-to-noise ratio, and /s/ to /z/ ratio did not change significantly after treatment in both groups. None of the outcome measures had significant differences between groups in any assessment points. The power of the study was 80%.

Conclusion: Tele-practice can have the same effects as in-person voice therapy. In addition, providing vocal hygiene counseling alongside continuous warm-up and cool-down exercises, breathing exercises, and head and neck exercises can lead to improved voice condition and reduced voice complaints.