A Voice Apart

Spasmodic Dysphonia is a voice disorder often caused by some neurological conditions, which could greatly affect your speech. This disorder is not immune to any age and can affect anyone and, unfortunately, can surface with anyone at any given time. With this voice-related problem, movement of the vocal cords is forced and strained resulting in a jerky, hoarse, tight or groaning voice. If you are affected by Spasmodic Dysphonia Disorder, the muscles inside your vocal box (mainly the larynx and vocal cords) may receive some abnormal nerve signals that most of the time cause the vocal folds to spasm uncontrollably.  Symptoms of Spasmodic Dysphonia At first, the symptoms may be mild and they may occur only occasionally. But with time, they may worsen and the spasms become more frequent. The main symptom of spasmodic dysphonia is a forced movement of the muscles inside the vocal box. This usually causes a very strained voice. The words you speak may be dragged out or broken w...

Lately, I’m dealing with a lot of clients (young and old) with the voice/speech problems. Most of them spent months or even years with speech therapists and speech pathologists. Some of them have gone to the regular check-ups with their ENT specialists and (in the final analysis) had not accomplished anything with respect to a resolution to their voice problem(s). How frustrating could that be?  It is extremely sad for them and their relatives, not to mention that the majority of those poor people, understandably, keep coming in and out of depression. Some of them lost their professions and their hobbies for that matter, like singing, for example, or playing some sports. Sometimes even watching some sport or concert events (in their case) could become a big challenge. It is usually quite noisy in those venues, and those with voice problems feel even more silenced as they cannot compete with the screaming crowd. Some of them have lost hope, some of them are still researc...