Correlatos acústicos e perceptivos da qualidade vocal de indivíduos portadores da Síndrome de Imunodeficiência Adquirida (SIDA)

Abstract

some authors suggest that patients with acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) show vocal production disturbances, but there are few reports concerned on voice quality description. Objective: to evaluate the voice quality of subjects with AIDS from a phonetic perspective. Methodology: this study took place at the Institute of Infectology Emílio Ribas and has been properly approved by its ethical committee. 29 subjects were divided into two groups (group 1: research, group 2: reference). Group 1 was composed by 20 subjects with AIDS, 10 male and 10 female, all of them with metabolic alterations (Dyslipidemia) and under antiretroviral therapy. Group 2 was composed of 9 subjects, 5 female and 4 male, all of them with metabolic alterations (Dyslipidemia), without AIDS. The audio samples were recorded and submitted to auditory (Vocal Profile Analysis Scheme for Brazilian Portuguese) and acoustic analysis (ExpressionEvaluator Script running in PRAAT v.10 software). The auditory and acoustic data underwent multivariate statistic analysis (software XLStat). Results: Group 1 (AIDS) revealed predominance of the vocal tract (retracted tongue body, lowered tongue body and pharyngeal constriction), muscular tension (vocal tract hyperfunction) and phonatory settings (creaky voice, harsh voice associated to whisper), differing by gender. From the acoustic point of view, the discriminator power of the acoustic measures was decreased when compared to perceptual descriptions. From the perceptual point of view the period of antiretroviral treatment revealed a relation with voice quality settings. Conclusion: the phonetic approach of voice quality in a group of subjects with AIDS revealed voice quality settings related to pharyngeal constriction and retracted tongue body. From an acoustic perspective, the acoustic measures revealed relevance for the description of the male population with AIDS. The integrated analysis of perceptual and acoustic data revealed correlation between vocal tract, tension and phonatory settings and LTAS long term spectrogram, spectral slope and fundamental frequency (f0) measures. The descriptions of voice quality settings, from the perceptual perspective, were relevant to characterize the voice quality of the studied group, as well as for revealing the association with the duration of antiretroviral therapy