Construction of an automatic score for the evaluation of speech disorders among patients treated for a cancer of the oral cavity or the oropharynx: The Carcinologic Speech Severity Index.

Background: Speech disorders impact quality of life for patients treated with oral cavity and oropharynx cancers. However, there is a lack of uniform and applicable methods for measuring the impact on speech production after treatment in this tumor location.

Objective: The objective of this work is to (1) model an automatic severity index of speech applicable in clinical practice, that is equivalent or superior to a severity score obtained by human listeners, via several acoustics parameters extracted (a) directly from speech signal and (b) resulting from speech processing and (2) derive an automatic speech intelligibility classification (i.

Validation of the French Versions of the Speech Handicap Index and the Phonation Handicap Index in Patients Treated for Cancer of the Oral Cavity or Oropharynx.

Context: Nowadays, clinical tools are available to evaluate the functional impact of speech disorders in neurological conditions, but few are validated in oncology. Because of their location, cancers of the upper aerodigestive tract directly impact patients' communication skills. Two questionnaires exist in French, the Speech Handicap Index (SHI) and the Phonation Handicap Index (PHI), but none are specifically validated for the head and neck cancer population.

Factors influencing intelligibility and severity of chronic speech disorders of patients treated for oral or oropharyngeal cancer.

Purpose: Oral or oropharyngeal tumors degrade patients' speech quality because of their location. The treatment of these cancers also affects the functional outcomes, depending on type (surgery, radiotherapy, chemotherapy), volume resection (according the size of the tumor) or on the anatomical area treated, and the post-treatment delay. The aim of this work is to determine the factors influencing the chronic speech disorders (in terms of intelligibility and severity) of patients treated for an oral or oropharyngeal cancer.

Automated data extraction from general practice records in an Australian setting: trends in influenza-like illness in sentinel general practices and emergency departments.

Background: Influenza intelligence in New South Wales (NSW), Australia is derived mainly from emergency department (ED) presentations and hospital and intensive care admissions, which represent only a portion of influenza-like illness (ILI) in the population. A substantial amount of the remaining data lies hidden in general practice (GP) records. Previous attempts in Australia to gather ILI data from GPs have given them extra work.

The voice handicap index: correlation between subjective patient response and quantitative assessment of voice.

The aim of this prospective study is to elucidate the relationship between the Voice Handicap Index (VHI) and several voice laboratory measurements in the network of the multidimensional voice assessment. Fifty-eight patients were included. Each patient replies to the questionnaire and performs a voice assessment during the same time.