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Sports-Related Musculoskeletal Injuries in Athletes: Implications for Voice

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Voice Disorders in Athletes, Coaches and other Sports Professionals

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Abstract

Musculoskeletal injuries occur when the body is unable to dissipate force-induced stress during exercise. Despite advocating numerous preventive strategies such as warm-up, cooldown, enhanced nutrition, and psychological intervention, musculoskeletal injuries are still common in athletes. The rate of injury varies with the intensity and volume of stress load on the musculoskeletal system. Other important determinants are the type of sport and individual factors such as age, gender, condition, and degree of professionalism.

Sports-related musculoskeletal injuries can jeopardize phonation by increasing muscle tension in structures adjacent to the larynx, impairing respiratory support, and/or causing neural/neuromuscular dysfunction. Postural imbalance, for instance, can affect voice by decreasing the efficiency of the support system for phonation, and trauma-induced respiratory dysfunction may be detrimental to athletes who need to vocalize while performing strenuous exercise. Similarly, musculoskeletal injuries to the upper extremities may affect phonation by causing excessive asymmetric tension in the laryngeal muscles, thus leading to hyperfunctional voice disorders and possibly vocal fold structural changes. Incurred pain and stress during the event of injury or along the course of its management also may jeopardize phonation. The impact of pain on voice is direct and indirect via its affective and/or central component. Stress and stress-related disorders are similarly detrimental to voice given the known link between phonation and psychological distress.

This chapter reviews the common musculoskeletal injuries in athletes and their impact on voice. The pathophysiology of dysphonia in affected athletes is discussed in detail with emphasis on the need for early recognition and treatment of the physical injury and mental well-being of the injured athletes.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery, American University of Beirut Medical Center, Beirut, Lebanon

    Abdul-Latif Hamdan

  2. Adjunct Professor, Department of Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery, Drexel University College of Medicine, Philadelphia, PA, USA

    Abdul-Latif Hamdan

  3. Department of Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery, Drexel University College of Medicine, Philadelphia, PA, USA

    Robert Thayer Sataloff & Mary J. Hawkshaw

  4. Lankenau Institute for Medical Research, Wynnewood, PA, USA

    Robert Thayer Sataloff

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  1. Abdul-Latif Hamdan
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  2. Robert Thayer Sataloff
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Correspondence to Abdul-Latif Hamdan .

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Hamdan, AL., Sataloff, R.T., Hawkshaw, M.J. (2021). Sports-Related Musculoskeletal Injuries in Athletes: Implications for Voice. In: Voice Disorders in Athletes, Coaches and other Sports Professionals. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-69831-7_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-69831-7_7

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