Does Electrodermal Response Represent Severity of Speech Disability in the Maxillectomy Patients?

Abstract

Severe speech difficulty is often caused after surgery for oral cancer. Prosthetic treatment with a removable obturator prosthesis is generally provided for such patients. To evaluate speech ability objectively, a speech intelligibility test has been used. In the previous report, the authors showed that measuring electrical resistance changes of skin caused by electrodermal response (galvanic skin response: GSR) during speech could be a useful method for assessing speech dissatisfaction of patients after oral cancer surgery; however, it is not clear that GSR can reflect the severity of speech disability. In the present study, the score obtained from evaluation methods for speech dissatisfaction using the GSR of maxillectomy patients was compared with speech intelligibility test and visual analogue scale (VAS) scores for speech satisfaction. A low correlation coefficient was observed between VAS improvement score and each of the two other scores (GSR improvement and speech intelligibility improvement scores). High correlation was observed between speech intelligibility improvement and GSR improvement scores. From these results, it is suggested that measuring electrical resistance change of skin during speech could reflect the severity of speech disability after oral cancer surgery.