Voice & Swallowing Clinic

Voice disorders can be broadly divided into improper usage/habitual or pathological conditions. They are most of the times complimentary to each other.

Causes of Voice Disorders

• Pathologies like Vocal Cord Nodules, Cyst, Polyp, Vocal Cord Palsy, Sulcus Vocalis
• Muscle Tension Dysphonia
• Spasmodic Dysphonia
• Vocal Cord Hemorrhage
• Faulty Speaking and Singing
• Poor Voice Projection
• Limited Pitch and Intensity Range
• Laryngeal Cancer
• Post Phonosurgery or Voice Surgery
• Laryngecotmy

Signs and Symptoms

• Hoarseness
• Breathy vocal quality
• Chronic cough or excessive throat clearing
• Vocal strain or fatigue
• Inability to speak loudly
• Loss of voice
• Reduced pitch range or sudden change in overall pitch
• Sudden or gradual change in overall vocal quality
• Tremulous quality in the voice
• Diplophonic (double-toned) quality
• Decreased breath support during speech

Dysphagia or a swallowing difficulty is a condition in which disruption of the swallowing process interferes with a patients ability to eat.

It can result in aspiration pneumonia, malnutrition, dehydration, weight loss, and airway obstruction.

Signs and Symptoms

Signs and symptoms of oral or pharyngeal dysphagia include the following:

• Coughing or choking with swallowing
• Difficulty initiating swallowing
• Food sticking in the throat
• Sialorrhea
• Unexplained weight loss
• Change in dietary habits
• Recurrent pneumonia
• Change in voice or speech (wet voice)
• Nasal regurgitation

Signs and Symptoms of Oesophageal Dysphagia include the following:

• Sensation of food sticking in the chest or throat
• Change in dietary habits
• Recurrent pneumonia
• Symptoms of gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), including> heartburn, belching, sour regurgitation, and water brash

ENT specialist, Voice & Swallowing Specialist provides primary services, in conjunction with several other medical disciplines to treat voice and swallowing disorders. Experts from neurology, gastroenterology, oncology, plastic surgery, dentistry, endocrinology, allergology, pulmonary medicine and clinical psychology/ psychiatry also form an integral part of the team.

Voice Disorders

• Clinical examination
• Laryngoscopy
• Videostroboscopy
• Dynamic voice evaluation with a flexible fibroptic laryngoscope
• Computerised and scientific acoustic analysis of voice
• Vocal hygiene or vocal health maintenance
• Correction of faulty use of voice
• Voice care programmes for different voice disorders in children and teenagers
• Restoration of damaged and injured voice
• Medical treatment for voice disorders
• Voice therapy
• Phonosurgery or voice surgery
• Training to improve voice projection
• Stress management strategies to improve the performance
• Psychological rehabilitation after vocal injury or voice problem
• Care of the professional voice users
• Transgender voice therapy
• Neurological voice correction
• Voice therapy for post laryngectomy

Dysphagia or Swallowing Disorders

• Subjective evaluation of swallowing at wards and at the ICUs
• Fibroptic endoscopic evaluation of swallowing (FEES)
• Dynamic swallow study (DSS)
• Oesophagogram
• Swallowing therapy for patients with neurogenic dysphagia (post stroke, trauma, degeneative diseases).
• Swallowing therapy for patients mechanical dysphagia (post radiation, chemotherapy and head & neck surgery patients).
• Surgical intervention of dysphagia or swallowing disorders.

Bhushan Jirgale

MASLP, Fellowship in Voice & Swallowing Pathology
Voice & Swallowing Specialist

Nilambar Bhera

MASLP
Audiologist & Speech Language Pathologist

Karthik Venugopal

MASLP
Audiologist & Speech Language Pathologist