Abstract
Diagnosis of vocal disorders require : 1) evaluation of the actual area of the lesion, 2) assessment of degree severity and the evaluation of the clinical course and 3) the determination of the causative factors. Establishing the type of vocal disorder and degree severity of organic vocal disorders can be diagnosed with video fiberscopy while phoniatric function tests are utilized to evaluate the prognosis of the patient during the course of therapy. Determination of maximum phonation time, range of voice, flow rate, change in intensity of voice and/or vocal pitch is a useful tool in diagnosing the degree severity or to evaluate the clinical course. In many cases, video fibroscopy alone cannot be definitive in diagnosing functional vocal disorders. Therefore, we incorporated the loading phoniatric function tests to ascertain the underlying vocal disorders and for differential diagnosis of organic vocal disorders from the functional vocal disorders. Furthermore, for organic vocal disorders, it is useful to evaluate the therapeutic results during the course of therapy.
