PURPOSE: To verify the occurrence of the types of dysphonic, maximum phonation time (MPT) of /a:/, and laryngeal abnormalities in elderly clinic patients. CASE DESCRIPTION: The data of 20 elderly Voice Clinic patients examined between August 2002 and June 2011 was extracted from the database of a clinical school of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences. This study included 12 women and 8 men, with an age range of 62-85 years (mean age, 71 years). Speech pathology diagnoses were as follows: organic dysphasia (OD) (55%), functional dysphonia (35%), and organofunctional dysphonia due to vocal cord nodules (ODF) (10%). The causes of OD patients included presbyphonia (25%); partial laryngectomy (15%); vocal cord paralysis (10%); and gastroesophageal reflux (5%). Laryngeal abnormalities without disorders (30%) and vocal gap (30%) were predominant, followed by partial laryngectomy (15%), paralysis, (10%), vocal nodules (10%), and gastroesophageal reflux disease (5%). We found that 95% of patients had subnormal MPT /a:/, suggestive of air escaping during phonation. CONCLUSION: The female predominance may have been due to the fact that women seek care for vocal abnormalities more often than men. OD due to presbyphonia without laryngeal pathology or visible cracks was predominant, with the expected decrease in MPT /a:/ values.
