y

890 Words2 Pages

SITUATION:
During a radio interview the British pop star, Adele, “felt a pop” and experienced her vocal pitch drop into the bass range frequency, followed by a sudden and complete loss of voice. She stressed her vocal folds, and ruptured a blood vessel resulting in a hemorrhage of the vocal lining, called a hemorrhagic polyp. The edge in her style of singing is the likely contribution to the polyp, along with a combination of smoking (WebMD). In October, 2011Adele underwent surgery to treat the vocal fold polyp with hemorrhage (Fauquier ENT).

For this study I will use her case to study the effects of a laryngeal growth on the voice.

WHAT IS A VOCAL FOLD POLYP AND HEMORRHAGE?
Vocal fold polyps are a benign (non-cancerous) growth on either on one or both of the vocal folds, and a common disorder of the larynx. The polyps look like a swelling or bump (ASHA) on the junction of the anterior and middle third of the vocal folds where lesions are elevated, appearing red, white or translucent (Hideki et al., 2012). They appear similar to a blister (ASHA). Refer to Figure 1.

Figure 1: Picture of a vocal polyp as seen by the speech pathologist or ENT physician through video endoscopy. Persistent, unilateral, midmusculomembraneous, true vocal fold lesions with typical hemorrhagic, fibrotic, or translucent characteristics (Hideki et al., 2012).

HOW DO POLYPS DEVELOP?
I. Vocal abuse or misuse: The long term or repeated vocal abuse or misuse of the vocal cords though activities such as singing, coaching, yelling and talking loudly (ASHA). A rupture occurs in the vessels of the superficial layer of the lamina propria resulting in a hematoma (swelling of clotted blood within the tissue). Edema and inflammatory cell infiltration th...

... middle of paper ...

...multilayered ultrastructure of vocal folds by maintaining a functional and anatomical state that closely mirrors the normal glottis (Geyer et al., 2010). o Preservation of both healthy mucosa and intermediate and deep layers of lamina propria is important for voice restitution (Geyer et al., 2010)

WHAT TREATMENT RECOMMENDATION WOULD YOU MAKE FOR A FELLOW STUDENT WHO HAS A VOCAL FOLD POLYP?
The recommendation I would give to a friend would be specific to their needs.If my fellow student discovered they had a vocal polyp after a night of screaming from watching The Backstreet Boy’s concert, I would recommend them to voice therapy. My assumption is the vocal fold polyp would be small and have a high chance of shrinking or going on remission. Voice therapy takes longer and requires strict care, but is noninvasive. I would also imagine less costly than surgery.

Open Document