Voice Therapy Per the Rehabilitation Treatment Specification System

Muscle Tension Dysphonia Clinical Trial

— RTSS-Voice  

Official title:

Towards a Unified System to Classify Treatments for Muscle Tension Dysphonia

Clinical Trial Details — Status: Not yet recruiting

Administrative data

• NCT number: NCT06152627
• Other study ID #: 2023P003127
• Status: Not yet recruiting
• Start date: September 1, 2024
• Est. completion date: August 31, 2027

Study information

• Verified date: December 2023
• Source: Massachusetts General Hospital
• Contact: Jarrad Van Stan, PhD, CCC-SLP
• Phone: 617-643-8410
• Email: jvanstan[@]mgh.harvard.edu
• Is FDA regulated: No
• Study type: Observational

Clinical Trial Summary

The goal of this study is to evaluate if using evidence-based, standard ingredient and target codes from the Rehabilitation Treatment Specification System - Voice Therapy (RTSS-Voice) in standard of care voice therapy documentation can improve outcomes for patients with muscle tension dysphonia (MTD). The main question it aims to answer is: Since the RTSS-Voice will help clinicians think about their treatment more specifically and in relation to nine evidence-based therapies, will its adoption be associated with improved outcomes? Clinicians across five voice centers will be asked to use the RTSS-Voice to document their voice therapy sessions for patients with MTD. Researchers will compare changes in outcomes between two groups of patients: those treated during the clinician's first year using the RTSS-Voice versus those treated during the clinician's second year using the RTSS-Voice.

Description:

The purpose of this study is to evaluate if using evidence-based, standard ingredient and target codes from the Rehabilitation Treatment Specification System - Voice Therapy (RTSS-Voice) in standard of care voice therapy documentation can improve outcomes for patients with muscle tension dysphonia (MTD). RTSS-Voice adoption is likely to be associated with improved outcomes because it requires clinicians to think about their therapy in relation to nine evidence-based therapies (i.e., increased evidence-based practice) and more carefully consider the specific changes in targets directly related to specific clinical actions, i.e., improved clinical reasoning. Sixty patents will be enrolled per year (at minimum) from each of the five participating voice centers, i.e., 300 patients in Years 1 and 2 (total patients = 600). For each patient, outcomes will be collected before and after therapy including patient-reported vocal functioning, clinician-reported voice quality, an objective measure associated with overall voice quality (Cepstral Peak Prominence/CPP), and total number of sessions. Each voice center uses different patient-reported and clinician-reported measures. Thus, linear regression models will examine changes in outcomes during Year 1 versus Year 2 for each individual site. The different patient- and clinician-reported measures have been found to be highly correlated. Therefore, individual sites will also be pooled together in a mini meta-analysis. Standardized effect sizes (Cohen's d) will be calculated for each site, representing the effect of RTSS-Voice adoption. Using a fixed effects model, an average effect size across sites will be calculated, weighted by sample size. The average effect size across sites will then represent the overall effect of the implementation on vocal functioning, voice quality, CPP, and number of sessions. Power: The investigators anticipate a minimum of 60 patients per site, (total of 300 patients per year). For site-specific analyses, a sample size of 60 patients for each group (Year 1 versus Year 2) is associated with 80% power to detect the smallest clinically meaningful effect size: d = .5. The effect size d = .5 was chosen because it is the smallest effect that is "visible to the naked eye" associated with rejecting the null hypothesis and supporting the alternative hypothesis in rehabilitation treatment studies and used in multiple voice studies.

Recruitment information / eligibility

• Status: Not yet recruiting
• Enrollment: 600
• Est. completion date: August 31, 2027
• Est. primary completion date: August 31, 2027
• Accepts healthy volunteers: No
• Gender: All
• Age group: 14 Years and older

Eligibility

Inclusion Criteria:

• Diagnosis of primary Muscle Tension Dysphonia (pMTD)
• Patients with pMTD will be included regardless of subtype (e.g., functional aphonia, vocal fry, ventricular dysphonia) and they can have secondary diagnoses of reflux.

Exclusion Criteria:

• Patients diagnosed with pMTD will be excluded if they have secondary diagnoses related to structural, neurological, or respiratory disorders such as laryngitis, obvious vocal fold nodules, polyps, cyst, granuloma, sulci, paradoxical vocal fold motion, chronic cough, confirmed or possible upper airway paralysis/paresis, dysphagia, polypoid corditis, keratosis, presbylarynx, leukoplakia, or history of radiation to the head/neck. Patients with pMTD will be included regardless of subtype (e.g., functional aphonia, vocal fry, ventricular dysphonia) and they can have secondary diagnoses of reflux.
• Non-English speakers. The RTSS-Voice's standard and operationalized categories are in English.

Related Conditions & MeSH terms

• Dysphonia
• Hoarseness
• Muscle Tension Dysphonia

Intervention

Behavioral:
• Standard of care voice therapy with novice clinician RTSS-Voice documentation
Voice therapy is individually tailored to each patient and typically includes behavioral ingredients (e.g., applying pressure to the anterior neck, practice voicing in various ways, feedback on performance, provide information on the importance of therapy concepts) to modify the patient's auditory, somatosensory, vocal, musculoskeletal, respiratory, and mental functions. During this time, the treating clinicians will be trained to use the RTSS-Voice in their clinical documentation.
• Standard of care voice therapy with expert clinician RTSS-Voice documentation
Voice therapy is individually tailored to each patient and typically includes behavioral ingredients (e.g., applying pressure to the anterior neck, practice voicing in various ways, feedback on performance, provide information on the importance of therapy concepts) to modify the patient's auditory, somatosensory, vocal, musculoskeletal, respiratory, and mental functions. During this time, the treating clinicians will have completed their RTSS-Voice training and using the RTSS-Voice in their clinical documentation.

Locations

Country	Name	City	State
United States	Emory University	Atlanta	Georgia
United States	Massachusetts General Hospital	Boston	Massachusetts
United States	University of Wisconsin	Madison	Wisconsin
United States	New York University	New York	New York
United States	University of Utah	Salt Lake City	Utah

Sponsors (5)

Lead Sponsor	Collaborator
Massachusetts General Hospital	Emory University, New York University, University of Utah, University of Wisconsin, Madison

Country where clinical trial is conducted

United States, 

Outcome

Type	Measure	Description	Time frame	Safety issue
Primary	Voice Health Index (VHI)	The VHI consists of 30 Likert questions ranging from 0-4 (0 = never, 1 = almost never, 2 = sometimes, 3 = almost always, 4 = always) that estimate how the patient's vocal function effects his/her daily life. A short-form can be used (the VHI-10) that uses a subset of 10 questions from the 30 total questions. This patient-reported outcome measure will be used to evaluate if the patients perceive that therapy helped them function better in their activities of daily living.	pre-intervention and immediately after the intervention
Primary	Voice-Related Quality of Life (V-RQOL)	The V-RQOL consists of 10 Likert-style questions ranging from 1-5 (1 = none not a problem at all, 2 = a small amount, 3 = a moderate (medium) problem, 4 = a lot, 5 = problem is "as bad as it can be") that estimate how the subject's vocal function effects his/her daily life. This patient-reported outcome measure will be used to evaluate if the patients perceive that therapy helped them function better in their activities of daily living.	pre-intervention and immediately after the intervention
Primary	Consensus Auditory Perceptual Evaluation of Voice (CAPE-V)	The CAPE-V consists of 4 perceptually judged 100-mm visual analog scales (Overall dysphonia, Breathiness, Strain, Roughness). The patient's treating voice specialized speech-language pathologist will judge the audio samples. These judgements provide gold-standard, perceptual ratings of voice quality to evaluate if voice therapy is associated with improved voice quality.	pre-intervention and immediately after the intervention
Primary	Grade Roughness Breathiness Asthenia Strain (GRBAS) Scale	The GRBAS consists of 5 perceptually-judged scales (Grade, Roughness, Breathiness, Asthenia, Strain) on a 0-3 Likert scale (0 = normal, 1 = mild severity, 2 = moderate severity, 3 = severe). The patient's treating voice specialized speech language pathologist will judge the audio samples. These judgements provide gold-standard, perceptual ratings of voice quality to evaluate if voice therapy is associated with improved voice quality.	pre-intervention and immediately after the intervention
Primary	Cepstral Peak Prominence (CPP)	To calculate CPP, all voiced 50 millisecond (ms) frames will undergo two discrete Fourier transforms computed in succession with a logarithmic transformation between them. A regression line is then computed over quefrencies greater than 2 ms (corresponding to a quefrency range minimally affected by subglottal resonances). Finally, the CPP for each frame is defined as the difference, in decibels (dB), between the magnitude of the highest peak and the baseline regression level in the power cepstrum. The peak search is limited to quefrencies between 2.5 ms and 12 ms, corresponding to frequencies of 417 Hertz (Hz) and 83 Hz, respectively. The resulting CPP is an estimate of periodicity in the voice signal, which has strongly correlated to overall dysphonia in multiple previous studies. This will be used to quantitatively evaluate if voice therapy was associated with improved overall voice quality.	pre-intervention and immediately after the intervention