Ambulatory Monitoring of Daily Voice Use
Many common voice disorders are chronic or recurring conditions likely to result from faulty and/or abusive patterns of vocal behavior. Such behaviorally based disorders can be difficult to assess accurately in the clinical setting and potentially could be much better characterized by long-term ambulatory monitoring of vocal function as individuals engage in their typical daily activities. Ambulatory monitoring also could provide new insight into the actual role of voice use in common disorders and missing quantitative data on what constitutes normal levels of daily voice use for different groups of individuals, activities, and occupations. This report describes the motivation, previous development efforts, current state-of-the-art technology, and future directions in ambulatory monitoring of voice use.