Impact on Voice after Cervical Spinal Cord Injury

Abstract

Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) is a major cause of disability and morbidity throughout the world and Asia. The association between CSCI and voice difficulties is clinically well-recognized. So this study was meant to determine the impacts on voice following CSCI. The study aimed to determine the impacts on voice following Cervical Spinal Cord Injury (CSCI). Additionally includes finding out the proportion of voice difficulties among CSCI patients, to identify the number of functional, physical, and emotional impacts on voice after CSCI, and to determine the socio-demographic characteristics of the study population. This study was conducted by using a cross-sectional prospective survey method at the SCI unit of CRP. Participants were selected by using purposive sampling. The result states from the research that CSCI is more common in males than females and nearly half of the person has physical, emotional, and functional impacts on voice after CSCI. Among participants, the maximum participants 22.5% (18) rated their voice problem at a moderate level (VHI=11-20) after CSCI and 11.3% (9) participants faced voice problems at a very severe level, 13.8% (11) participants had severe level voice problem. The association between surgeries happened or not happened and the severity of voice problems among CSCI patients showed statistically non-significant. Patients with cervical spinal cord injury faces several clinical problems in our country, whereas nearly most of them experience mild to moderate voice deficits secondary to poor respiratory support. In Bangladesh, Speech & Language Therapy services for SCI patients are newly introduced in the last few years. So for providing proper comprehensive services to SCI patients the monitoring of communicative function from the acute phase to the community reintegration phase is essential.