OBJECTIVE: To describe acoustic measurements of vocal tone before and after an endurance vocal test in healthy elderly women. METHODOLOGY: Eleven elderly women with an average age of 71 years, without voice disorders, participated in the study. We observed each patient during the emission of a sustained vowel /a/, before and after the continuous 60-min reading test. A AKG-C420® microphone headset was used for recording. The headset was positioned at an angle of 90° from the subject's mouth, maintaining a distance of 2 cm between the microphone and the mouth, in an acoustically treated environment, using the Multidimensional Voice Program-Advance program (Kay Pentax®). The start and end of transmission were eliminated with minimal emissions of 3 s. RESULTS: We observed that there was a slight post-test increase in F0, from 214.8 Hz to 212.3 Hz. In terms of the phonatory Fo-range of semi-tones after continuous speech, there was a reduction from 8 to 4.4 semintons. No change in Fo-tremor intensity was observed. The amplitude tremor intensity index increased from 2.1% to 2.4% after continuous speech. For jitter percent and shimmer percent, there were slight decreases between the 2 moments, from 1.3% to 1.4% and from 4.4% to 4.8%, respectively. The noise to harmonic ratio increased from 0.14 to 0.8. The voice turbulence Index remained at 0.03. The soft phonation index increased slightly after the test from 9.3 to 10.8. CONCLUSION: The vocal acoustic measures of healthy elderly women tended to increase after a test of continuous speech.
