Voice- and health-related quality of life in the elderly.

Objective: Restrictions of verbal communication and high prevalence of voice disorders in the elderly are suspected to influence the quality of life. For assessment, both voice-specific and unspecific methods are already established and fundamental components of clinical diagnostics, but the question of correlation between voice-related and general health-related quality of life is still open in this subpopulation.

Methods: One hundred and seven socially active persons aged 65+ years were recruited and asked to complete Voice-Related Quality of Life (V-RQOL) and Short Form (SF)-36 questionnaires.

Results: There was a mild correlation between V-RQOL score and both of the SF-36 subscores (r(s)=0.28 for the physical subscore and r(s)=0.27 for the mental subscore).

Conclusion: As correlation of voice- and health-related quality of life in elderly persons is only mild, both voice-specific and unspecific assessment methods are required for clinical diagnostics.