Evaluation and treatment of puberphonia: literature review

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: Puberphonia is a voice disorder that begins in adolescence and is characterized by the use of a higher pitch after the period of vocal change. The causes are multiple, ranging from lack of adaptation of the laryngeal muscle to environmental and psychosocial influences. OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study was to collect and analyze the current scientific evidence on the evaluation and treatment of puberphonia. DATA SOURCE: A search for works published from 2008 to 2018 was carried out in the PubMed and LILACS (Latin American Literature) databases. The search terms used were puberphonia, mutational falsetto, voice change disorder and all possible combinations in Spanish, English and Portuguese. The exclusion criteria used were: articles published in other languages, bibliographic reviews, articles that in their abstract did not include methodology, results or conclusions of the research. DATA SYNTHESIS: The literature review revealed 16 articles that met the inclusion and exclusion criteria. The reviewed studies had a total sample size of 1 to 45 subjects with puberphonia, all male. Most of the sample designs were non-experimental and only two were experimental (case-control). CONCLUSION: Puberphonia is a voice disorder characterized by the use of higher tones and vocal instability. Speech-language therapy is the most effective measure according to the literature review. However, type III thyroplasty is also an alternative surgical option, especially in cases where speech-language therapy does not produce good results.