Correlating Undiagnosed Hearing Impairment with Hyperfunctional Dysphonia

Purpose: This study initially investigated the co-occurrence of hearing impairment that had not been previously diagnosed in a group of patients with hyperfunctional dysphonia. Subsequently, it explored whether any correlations exist between quantitative dysphonia severity assessment parameters and distinctive acoustic features of hearing impairment. Method: The age-stratified participants were 36 patients presenting with hyperfunctional dysphonia to the voice clinic. For each subject, the following measurements were collected: grade of dysphonia severity rating by the clinician, a Voice Handicap Index (VHI) Patient Questionnaire, and an acoustic analysis of a standardized voice sample. Subsequently, the participants were referred to the audiology clinic for pure tone audiometry testing. Results: The co-occurrence of hyperfunctional dysphonia and coincidentally discovered hearing impairment showed a percentage of 33% in the study subjects. There were no significant differences in the acoustic profiles of patients with and without hearing impairment. Mean frequency and jitter % were positively correlated in all investigated cohorts, except in subjects with simultaneous occurrence of hearing impairment and dysphonia. Mean intensity and shimmer % were not correlated in any of the groups investigated. Conclusion: The physiological mechanism for regulating pitch perturbation is altered in individuals with hearing impairment compared to normal hearing subjects. Pitch and amplitude perturbation have different regulatory mechanisms.