Clinical Study of Aged Patients with Hoarseness

노인애성환자에 대한 임상적연구

The voice of aged persons is known generally to be somewhat different from that of other adults, suggesting that laryngeal change occurs with advancing age. However, because knowledge of the voice characteristics of aged persons is limited, it is difficult to judge whether their voices arc normal. Chart review and laryngoscopic examination from ninety-one patients with hoarseness over the age of 60(1st group) and one hundred sixteen patients with hoarseness below the age of 50(2nd group) were done to define aging related voice disorders. The following results were obtained. 1) Associated diseases related to laryngeal disease were hypertension(12%), pulmonary disease(4.4%), thyroid disease(1.1%) in 1st group and hypertension(9.5%), thyroid disease(1.7%) in 2nd group. 2) The underlying diseases causing hoarseness in order of frequency were benign vocal fold lesion(37.7%), inflammatory disease(36.8%), functional dysphonia(17%) in 1st group and benign vocal fold lesion(43.6%), functional dysphonia(26.3%), inflammatory disease(16.5%) in 2nd group. 3) In stroboscopic findings, atrophy and sulcus of vocal cords are more prevalent in males than in females and edema of vocal cords is more common in females. Generally the voice characteristics of aged persons depend on the mass of the vocal folds which may be decreased through atrophy or be increased by edema. However, other factors such as systemic diseases, drug side effects and compensatory mechanism to presbylaryngis must be taken into account in diagnosing and treating voice disorders in aged persons.