3 Clinical Trials for Various Conditions
In-office procedures (IOPs) are a cost-effective, and safe alternative to many operating room procedure, with benefits such as reduced anesthesia risk. One of the major causes of failed in-office procedures or requirement of conversion to the operating room is poor patient tolerance. Vibration and augmented reality (AR) can be used as non-pharmacologic treatment options to treat patient anxiety and pain by using the physiology proposed by the gate-way theory of pain as well as distraction. This study seeks to compare anxiety and pain perception with patient reported survey data, as well as physiologic indicators of stress such as heart rate variability (HRV) within patients undergoing IOPs in a laryngology office with and without vibration and AR treatment.
Vocal hyperfunction (VH) is the most commonly treated class of voice disorders by speech-language pathologists and voice therapy is the primary curative treatment. Patients and clinicians report that generalizing improved voicing into daily life is the most significant barrier to successful therapy. We will test if extending biofeedback into the patient's daily life using ambulatory voice monitoring will significantly improve generalization during therapy and if individual patient factors, like how easily they can modify their voice and engagement during therapy, moderate the effects of the biofeedback.
Current semi-occluded vocal tract therapies limit the type of vocalizations that can be produced to single vowels, which does not promote learning of the healthy voice behavior in connected speech or generalization to conversation. However, recent preliminary results using a semi-occluded mask indicate that the use of certain mask port diameters may allow for natural speech production while increasing supraglottal pressure and impedance, and thereby result in elicitation of voice with increased efficiency. In addition, the use of a semi-occluded mask provides the possibility for a better transition from phonating single phonemes in therapy to training the target therapy techniques in connected speech.