title: Dysphonia in nursing home and assisted living residents: prevalence and association with frailty.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Previous studies of geriatric dysphonia prevalence have been limited to ambulatory outpatient and senior communities. Our goal was to identify prevalence of dysphonia in nursing home residents and assisted living residents and search for correlations between indices of dysphonia and indices of frailty.
  
  
  METHODS
  Prospective epidemiological survey.
  
  
  METHODS
  Residents of a vertically integrated senior care organization who were 65 or older and able to understand and complete the questionnaire were recruited to complete the voice handicap index 10 (VHI-10) to assess for dysphonia (VHI-10 > 10 = dysphonia) and Vulnerable Elders Survey 13 (VES-13), a validated instrument to assess for frailty (VES > 3 = frailty).
  
  
  RESULTS
  A total of 119 residents were surveyed. Thirty-three percent of nursing home residents, and 25% of assisted living residents reported dysphonia with 29% of all respondents reporting dysphonia. The mean VHI-10 was 7.4, the median was 5, and the interquartile range was 2-12.5. There was a significant relationship between VHI-10 and VES-13 score (P = 0.029). There were no statistically significant relationships between frailty, age, or type of living and dysphonia or VHI-10.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  There is a high prevalence of voice dysfunction in assisted living and nursing home residents. The correlation between VHI-10 and VES-13 suggests that voice declines as frailty increases.
authors.affiliation: Department of Otolaryngology and Communication Sciences, Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
authors.forename: Brent
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: G Nichols
authors.affiliation: Department of Otolaryngology, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida.
authors.forename: Varun
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Varadarajan
authors.affiliation: Department of Otolaryngology and Communication Sciences, Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
authors.forename: Jonathan M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Bock
authors.affiliation: Department of Otolaryngology and Communication Sciences, Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Electronic address: jblumin@mcw.edu.
authors.forename: Joel H
authors.initials: JH
authors.lastname: Blumin
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D055154:Dysphonia / Q000453:epidemiology*; D016330:Frail Elderly / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006707:Homes for the Aged / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D009735:Nursing Homes / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D015995:Prevalence; D014922:Wisconsin / Q000453:epidemiology
keywords: Dysphonia; Frailty; Geriatric dysphonia; Geriatric voice; Geriatrics; Prevalence dysphonia