Expert System-Type Approach to Voice Disorders: Scheduling Botulinum Toxin Treatment for Adductor Spasmodic Dysphonia

One of the most debilitating disorders is adductor spasmodic dysphonia (ADSD), a voice disorder caused by involuntary movements of the muscles of the larynx (voice box). For treating ADSD, botulinum toxin (BT) injections turned out to be very useful. However, the effects of BT are highly variable, so at present, there is no objective criterion of when such a BT treatment is necessary. It is therefore desirable to develop such a criterion. In this paper, we show that traditional statistical techniques are unable to generate such a criterion, while a natural expert system approach seems to be capable of generating reasonably simple rules that determine when a BT treatment is necessary.

[1]  V. Kreinovich.  Computational Complexity and Feasibility of Data Processing and Interval Computations , 1997 .

[2]  Vladik Kreinovich,et al.  Soft computing in measurement and information acquisition , 2003 .

[3]  R J Sinard,et al.  Late-occurring infections of medialization laryngoplasty implants. , 2001, Otolaryngology--head and neck surgery : official journal of American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery.

[4]  M Swenson,et al.  Effects of botulinum toxin therapy in patients with adductor spasmodic dysphonia: Acoustic, aerodynamic, and videoendoscopic findings , 1992, The Laryngoscope.

[5]  Charles N. Ford,et al.  Botulinum toxin treatment of spasmodic dysphonia: Techniques, indications, efficacy* , 1992 .

[6]  Ralph L. Rosnow,et al.  Essentials of Behavioral Research: Methods and Data Analysis , 1984 .

[7]  R. Beaver,et al.  LARYNGOSCOPE , 1955, Definitions.

[8]  C. Watts,et al.  Disfluency in spasmodic dysphonia: a multivariate analysis. , 1997, Journal of speech, language, and hearing research : JSLHR.

[9]  C. Sapienza,et al.  Consistency of voice produced by patients with adductor spasmodic dysphonia: a preliminary investigation. , 2001, Journal of speech, language, and hearing research : JSLHR.

[10]  T Murry,et al.  Acoustic variations in adductor spasmodic dysphonia as a function of speech task. , 1999, Journal of speech, language, and hearing research : JSLHR.

[11]  A Blitzer,et al.  Botulinum toxin for the treatment of spasmodic dysphonia. , 2000, Otolaryngologic clinics of North America.

[12]  W J Litchy,et al.  Botulinum toxin injection for adductor spastic dysphonia: Patient self‐ratings of voice and phonatory effort after three successive injections , 1993, The Laryngoscope.

[13]  Aeilko H. Zwinderman,et al.  Evaluation of Voice Quality in Adductor Spasmodic Dysphonia before and after Botulinum Toxin Treatment , 2001, The Annals of otology, rhinology, and laryngology.

[14]  R F Naunton,et al.  Successful Treatment of Selected Cases of Abductor Spasmodic Dysphonia using Botulinum Toxin Injection , 1991, Otolaryngology--head and neck surgery : official journal of American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery.

[15]  Thomas Murry,et al.  Perceptual analyses of spasmodic dysphonia before and after treatment. , 2004, Archives of otolaryngology--head & neck surgery.

[16]  Vladik Kreinovich,et al.  Applications of Continuous Mathematics to Computer Science , 1997 .

[17]  D S Lundy,et al.  The effect of patient factors on response outcomes to Botox treatment of spasmodic dysphonia. , 1998, Journal of voice : official journal of the Voice Foundation.

[18]  Thomas Murry,et al.  Functional assessment of patients with spasmodic dysphonia , 1992 .

[19]  G. Fairbanks.  Voice and articulation drillbook , 1960 .

[20]  R J Sinard.  The aging voice: how to differentiate disease from normal changes. , 1998, Geriatrics.

[21]  A. Aronson,et al.  Double‐blind controlled study of botulinum toxin in adductor spasmodic dysphonia , 1991, The Laryngoscope.

[22]  Anthony P. Salvatore,et al.  Spasmodic dysphonia: A neural net analysis , 1999 .

[23]  Bertha Manriquez.  Comparison of two training procedures: Fading versus trial and error , 2005 .