Phoniatrics

Phoniatrics is the medical specialty for communicative disorders. It is related with the normal, pathological, and professional processes that involve voice, speech, language, swallowing, and hearing. Besides being a specific discipline, it is also a discipline that combines the accumulation of knowledge from both medical and nonmedical fields of science.Most importantmedical specialties that contribute to phoniatrics are otorhinolaryngology, neurology, pediatrics, psychiatry, pediatric psychiatry, dentistry, gastroenterology, geriatrics, endocrinology, radiology, genetics, and physical therapy. Otorhinolaryngology (ORL) Section and Board of European Union of Medical Specialists (UEMS) decided “phoniatrics—communication disorders” as one of the seven subspecialities of otorhinolaryngology in 2010 [1]. Many nonmedical specialties also contribute to phoniatrics. These may be named as speech and language pathology, audiology, linguistics, child development, psychology, pediatric psychology, physiotherapy, acoustics, physics, biomedical sciences, pedagogy, and computer information technologies. The field of voice ranges from acoustics and aerodynamics, to the biomechanics of voice, articulation, and resonance, to voice training, vocal ergonomics, and vocal hygiene, to the complex neurologic, psychiatric, and sociological basis of interpersonal communication. The incidence of voice disorders in the general population is considered between 3% and 9% [2, 3]. This incidence is considered much higher for children, being reported up to 24% [4]. These rates only highlight the importance of increasing awareness of voice disorders. Understanding vocal production is a crucial step in diagnosing and treating voice ailments. In this issue, you will find an article by A. A. Poznyakovskiy et al. that discusses the importance of vocal tract morphology in voice production by using a 3-tesla magnetic resonance imaging model. They showed that the method is suitable for an improved in-detail analysis of the vocal tract morphology during speech and singing. The development of new diagnostic tools continues to improve our ability to properly identify vocal pathologies. To this end, E. Gonzalez-Moreira and colleagues discussed the utilization of computational speech analysis to identify dementia in elderly patients. Also in this issue, L. Moro-Velázquez and colleagues discuss the efficacy of automatized evaluation of subjective voice parameters by modulation spectra morphological parameters. They demonstrate efficiencies of 81.6% and 84.7% for Grade andRoughness, respectively, usingmodulation spectra parameters. In another article, L. M. T. Jesus et al. pointed out the acoustic correlates of compensatory adjustment in vocal fold paralysis patients. Proper understanding and diagnosis lead to optimization of vocal restoration. This issue shares several modernmethods ofmanaging laryngeal pathology. B. Svensson and colleagues continued towork on restoring vocal fold function after injury in an animal study. In their study they have shown that human embryonic stem cells transplanted to injured rabbit vocal folds restored their vibratory characteristics. H. K. Byeon and colleagues reported their experience with pulsed dye laser in treatment of hemorrhagic vocal fold polyps. It was shown that PDL-assisted enucleation laryngeal microsurgery for the treatment of hemorrhagic vocal polyps can be a safe and effective surgical technique, with improvements in subjective voice perception.