Voice care for professionals
Voice checks for teachers, singers and actors
Teachers, singers, actors and anyone who speaks for many hours a day need a voice check sooner than others. A voice that tires before the day is over, drops lower or loses its high notes is examined with laryngoscopy (throat endoscopy) before fatigue turns into damage.
Who counts as a professional voice user?
Anyone who cannot do their job without their voice. Singers and actors are the most obvious, but the largest group is teachers, especially kindergarten and primary school teachers. The same group includes church cantors and priests, lawyers, coaches, salespeople, call center staff and anyone who speaks into a microphone.
Teachers have voice problems almost twice as often as the general population. The reason is not that they speak the wrong way. They speak for many hours, over noise, in rooms with poor acoustics, and rarely have time to rest their voice before they need it again.
What differs from one profession to another?
- Teachers. The problem is almost always volume and duration: hours of speaking over the noise of the classroom. The solution involves voice therapy, but also practical measures, such as a small microphone and voice breaks between lessons.
- Singers. The changes that bother them are often so small that the listener cannot hear them. Here the assessment takes into account the repertoire, the performance schedule and the work with the singing teacher.
- Actors and public speakers. The voice has to carry in a large space, often without a microphone, and in roles that call for voices unlike their natural one. Rehearsals strain the voice more than the performances themselves.
The first signs
- Your voice tires sooner than it used to and takes more effort for the same volume.
- It only recovers after rest, for example it is fine on Monday but not on Friday
- The high notes or soft singing go, often the first thing a singer notices.
- Your voice sounds breathy or breaks, or you often need to clear your throat.
For professional voice users, we do not wait the 3 weeks that the rule sets for hoarseness that will not go awaybecause every day the voice works while tired makes the picture worse. If your voice suddenly goes while you are pushing it, stop using it and ask for an examination within the next few days, because it may be bleeding in the vocal cord.
What is different about the assessment?
The basis is the same as for any voice check: laryngoscopy and stroboscopywhich shows the vocal cords in slow motion as they vibrate. For professional voice users it matters even more, because their problems are often small, such as early swelling or a vocal cord that does not close completely, and only show up on stroboscopy.
What changes are the questions. We want to know how many hours you speak or sing, in what kind of space, with what repertoire, and what has changed recently. We listen to your voice the way you use it at work, at classroom volume or in a phrase from your repertoire, and we record your vocal range, so that at every follow-up we compare against measurements, not impressions.
What to bring to your appointment
- A recording of your voice from when it was fine. A file from your phone is enough.
- Your schedule for the coming weeks: performances, rehearsals, exams, the start of the school year.
- The repertoire you are working on now, if you sing.
- Previous examinations of your voice box and a list of the medicines you take, because some of them, such as inhalers, affect the voice.
What happens next?
Most cases are treated without surgery.
Non-surgical treatment
Voice therapy is done together with a speech therapist and combined with changes to the way you work, treatment of reflux where present, and practical measures at your workplace. For singers, the singing teacher is also part of the plan.
Surgery
When a lesion does not go away, surgery is done by microlaryngoscopy, meaning microsurgery on the voice box through the mouth, without any external cut. Its timing is planned around your schedule, so that your return to the stage or the classroom does not fall in the most delicate period.
Frequently asked questions
With mild fatigue, reduce the load and give your voice breaks. But if your voice suddenly went while you were pushing it, or if it hurts, stop and ask for an examination within the next few days, before your next performance or lesson.
They soothe the throat, but they do not reach the vocal cords, because whatever you swallow passes behind the voice box, not through it. What does reach the vocal cords is good overall hydration and the moist air you breathe in.
Not necessarily. Forced whispering can strain the voice box as much as normal speech. When you need rest, choose silence or a calm, quiet voice.
For people who rely on their voice for work, a first check while the voice is fine gives a baseline for comparison. If something changes later, it shows exactly what has changed and by how much.
When should you come in?
Before a demanding period
Start of the school year, rehearsals, a tour
A check while your voice is fine, so there is a reference point.
Before a performance
Assessment when your voice is not well
With a clear answer on whether it can work safely or not.
Medical certificates
Voice fitness for studies and professions
Since 2021, Dr. Kotrotsos has been the phoniatrician (voice specialist) of the Stuttgart State Theatre (Staatstheater Stuttgart)..
Medical review: Dr. Ioannis KotrotsosENT Surgeon and Specialist in Phoniatrics and Pediatric Audiology.
Πηγή: Roy N et al., Prevalence of voice disorders in teachers and the general population, J Speech Lang Hear Res, 2004.
The information on this page is for general information only and does not replace a medical examination. For diagnosis and treatment, please consult a doctor.
