Korean J Otolaryngol-Head Neck Surg.  1997 Aug;40(8):1156-1161.

Effects of Aging and Smoking on Acoustic Characteristics of Voice

• Nam SY
• Nam EC
• Lee KS

Abstract

OBJECTIVE
To evaluate aging and smoking effects on acoustic characteristics of voice.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
Sixty men and sixty women representing two chronological age Groups(young and elderly, i.e. 20-35 and over 60). A computerized acoustic analysis program(CSL-MDVP) was used to measure mean fundamental frequency(Fo), jitter, shimmer, and noise to harmonics ratio(NHR) from voice samples of sustained phonation of vowel /a/.
RESULTS
The elderly females showed lower Fo than young females, but produced similar jitter, shimmer and NHR. In male groups, the elderly had about 10Hz higher voice than young males and produced more jitter and shimmer. And multiple regression analysis showed both aging and smoking had significant correlation with increase of jitter and shimmer. The values of NHR showed no significant difference between any groups. Intersubject difference was larger in elderly groups, and was most apparent in the elderly-smoking group.
CONCLUSION
While chronological aging is undoubtedly a contributor to such changes in the characteristics of voice, these results suggest that the onset of vocal aging could be different between the subjects of same age and the effect of smoking must be considered in the acoustic analysis of voice.

Keyword

Aging; Smoking; Voice

MeSH Terms

Acoustics*
Aged
Aging*
Female
Humans
Male
Noise
Phonation
Smoke*
Smoking*
Voice*
Smoke