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Effects of Weight Loss on Acoustic Parameters After Bariatric Surgery

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Abstract

Background

Patients with morbid obesity may present vocal alterations, since large accumulation of fat in the vocal tract may interfere with voice production of these individuals.

Objective

Verify the neck circumference and the acoustic parameters of voice in obese women, before and after the bariatric surgery, and compare the results with a control group, with normal weight.

Methods

Observational, longitudinal, descriptive study with patients referred to the SCODE (Obesity Surgery and Related Disorders Center) in a university hospital. The sample consisted of 25 morbidly obese women, age range 28–43 years and 23 non-obese women, aged 21–41 years control group. To measure the neck circumference, a tape measure was used and all participants were seated upright with the head positioned in the Frankfort horizontal plane. The fundamental frequency was calculated through the sustained emission of vowel [a] at usual intensity and pitch, to measure the fundamental frequency of the voice, that is, how much the vocal fold vibrates per second. After the recording, participants were prompted to produce vowels [a], [i], and [u] sustained at usual intensity and pitch, and a stopwatch was used to measure the maximum phonation time, to verify the balance between myoelastic and dynamic forces of the larynx. After 8 months post-surgery, the patients were recruited to be re-evaluated using the same pre-surgical data collection procedures.

Results

There was an increase in the mean value of f0. The maximum phonation time of all vowels increased after surgery.

Conclusion

Obese individuals with post-surgery weight loss may present neck circumference, fundamental frequency, and maximum phonation time values closer to the mean values of normal weight individuals. In this study, weight loss was sufficient to adjust the acoustic parameter measurements.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology, Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte, Av. General Gustavo de Farias, S/N. Petrópolis, Natal, RN, Brazil

    Lourdes Bernadete Rocha de Souza

  2. Health Sciences, Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte, Natal, RN, Brazil

    Marquiony Marques dos Santos & Cynthia Meira de Almeida Godoy

  3. Department of Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology, Federal University of Paraíba, João Pessoa, PB, Brazil

    Leandro Araújo Pernambuco

  4. Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte, Natal, RN, Brazil

    Deysianne Meire da Silva Lima

Authors
  1. Lourdes Bernadete Rocha de Souza
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  2. Marquiony Marques dos Santos
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  3. Leandro Araújo Pernambuco
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  4. Cynthia Meira de Almeida Godoy
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  5. Deysianne Meire da Silva Lima
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Contributions

Lourdes Bernadete Rocha de Souza participated in the general coordination of the study, in the project, data collection, design, and writing of the manuscript.

Marquiony Marques dos Santos contributed in the analysis and interpretation of the results.

Leandro Araújo Pernambuco contributed in the design and writing of the manuscript.

Cynthia Meira de Almeida Godoy participated in the data collection.

DeysianneMeire da Silva Lima participated in the data collection.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Lourdes Bernadete Rocha de Souza.

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Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Statement of Informed Consent

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study. This study was approved by the Ethics Research Committee of the institution no. 207.630/2013 for the EG and no. 809.761/1 for the CG.

Statement of Human and Animal Rights

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Additional information

This study was conducted at the Department of Speech-Language Pathology of the Federal University of Grande do Norte—UFRN and Obesity Surgery and Related Disorders Center of the University Hospital Onofre Lopes, Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte- Natal-RN, Brazil.

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de Souza, L.B.R., dos Santos, M.M., Pernambuco, L.A. et al. Effects of Weight Loss on Acoustic Parameters After Bariatric Surgery. OBES SURG 28, 1372–1376 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11695-017-3018-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11695-017-3018-6

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