Objective assessment of hoarseness by measuring jitter

Abstract

The objective measurement of hoarseness by measuring 'jitter' (the average percentage pitch-period variation between consecutive pitch-cycles) using an inverse filtering technique is described. Twenty-five patients with a variety of causes of hoarseness were studied, together with five individuals who had mild hoarseness induced by histamine challenge and 12 normal individuals. The mean severity of jitter in the patient group (9.8%) was significantly different from the normals. (1.04%) In addition, there was a significant correlation (R2 = 0.53; P < 0.0001) between jitter and subjective assessment of hoarseness. The mean values of jitter with histamine challenge before and after recovery (1.03%, and 1.18%) were significantly different (P < 0.0001) to the mean maximum value during the challenge (2.64%). These data suggest that jitter is an objective and repeatable measurement of hoarseness-even small changes in hoarseness in individual patients. It is likely to prove most effective for monitoring treatment response.

Normatização de medidas acústicas para vozes normais

“…Among acoustic parameters, fundamental frequency has proven to be the most uniform of them when we consider different acoustic analysis systems, and the one less sensitive to voice recording characteristics [7][8][9] . Frequency and cycle-to-cycle amplitude variation measures, jitter and shimmer, respectively, in the production of sustained vowels have proved to be useful in the description of normal and dysphonic speakers' vocal characteristics, being respectively related to hoarseness and roughness 6,[10][11][12][13] . Fundamental frequency, jitter and shimmer seem to also suffer the influence of smoking -fundamental frequency is significantly lower and both jitter and shimmer are higher when we compare smokers to non-smokers 14 .…”

Perceptual and Acoustic Assessment of Voice Pathology and the Efficacy of Endolaryngeal Phonomicrosurgery

“…Among the objective measurements currently used and commercially available are instruments that provide automated acoustic analysis of such essential and important acoustic voice quality parameters as perturbations of fundamental frequency (jitter) and amplitude (shimmer), and glottal noise, ie, normalized noise energy (NNE). [10][11][12][13] Increased values of jitter, shimmer, and NNE have been associated with changes in dysphonia and various laryngeal pathologies. [14][15][16] Measurements of these parameters and analysis of treatment outcomes have been used in several studies for the objective assessment of pretreatment and posttreatment voice status and have also given clinicians a better understanding of the impact of voice disorders and the efficiency of surgical interventions.…”

Análise de características vocais e de aspectos psicológicos em indivíduos com transtorno obsessivo-compulsivo

“…Na análise acústica, os resultados encontrados para shimmer (APQ) no presente estudo foram 3,43% para indivíduos com TOC e 2,45% para grupo controle. Este parâmetro acús-tico está relacionado ao aspecto perceptual de rouquidão (24) . Observa-se que essa medida encontrada nos indivíduos com TOC está acima do padrão de normalidade e pode estar relacionado com a redução da resistência glótica e ruído na emissão.…”

“…As medidas relativas de jitter (PPQ) são expressas em porcentagem e o valor limite de normalidade é de 0,5%, valores válidos para o software Doctor Speech 3.0 (26) . Este dado pode ser associado à aspereza vocal encontrada nos indivíduos com TOC (24) , característica essa não observada no grupo controle. Padrões de pitch elevado e qualidade vocal com elementos de aspereza podem indicar stress e tensão (25) .…”