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Voice Care Team: Highlights
Concept of a Voice Care Team
A voice care team is an interdisciplinary team of voice
professionals typically under the direction of a specialist in ear,
nose, and throat medicine, an otolaryngologist or a
laryngologist.
- The physician evaluates the voice disorders, determines the
cause or causes (diagnosis),
and provides medical treatment for voice disorders.
- The speech-language pathologist (or phoniatrist in countries
without speech-language pathologists) provides voice therapy and
attends to problems that affect the speaking voice.
- Other team members may be from any one or more of the
following professions: singing voice specialist, acting voice
specialist, nurse and/or physician assistant, and consultant
physician and non-physician specialists.
Voice care has evolved into a sophisticated medical science.
Patients with voice disorders are served best by an
interdisciplinary team consisting of physicians and
non-physicians.
- The physician may be a specialist who practices all aspects of
ear, nose, and throat medicine (otolaryngologist),
or an otolaryngologist who further subspecializes in voice
disorders (laryngologist).
- The physician collaborates with non-physician voice
professionals such as: speech-language pathologist, singing voice
specialist, and/or acting voice specialist.
- As a medical care team, other key professionals of the voice
team are consultants from different medical and non-medical
specialties: neurologist, psychiatrist, psychologist, as well as
the voice team nurse and/or physician assistant and/or medical
assistant.
Under the best of circumstances, all members of the voice team
have received special training in the care of the voice in addition
to general aspects of their disciplines respectively.
Although even the best training does not guarantee clinical
excellence, it does improve the probability that a practitioner will
provide superior, modern voice care.
Voice Care Not Just For Performing Artists
Although the highest-visibility patients for the voice care team
are performing artists, who have strong professional demands on
their voice, a voice care team provides care to anyone with voice
problems – all professions, all ages.
Voice Health as a Basic Component of
Well-Being
Increasingly, voice problems are recognized as critical clues to
uncovering not just medical health problems, but also mental and
emotional health problems.
The recognition of the importance of voice health for the total
well-being increases the challenge to the voice care team and
highlights the importance of the team concept of multidisciplinary
professionals.
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