Voice Exercises for the extubated...

Again, thank you University Hospital speech therapists for the English language version of these exercises.  Sometimes people have tubes shoved down their throats to make sure they keep breathing during medical emergencies or surgeries.  These tubes force the vocal folds to remain open, and often cause harm going in or coming out.  If the vocal chords are forced apart for too long or are too damaged, then they don't come together as they should.  They need to come together for airway protection when a person swallows, and they need to come together to vocalize, which is necessary for almost all the sounds in our and every other human language. 

This is mostly for speech therapists, to see what I'm doing, and get ideas.  If you're doing something else, drop me a comment!  These, as well as the swallowing exercises, are used, at least in my case, in the acute setting.  The rehab speechies tend to have a little more detailed and reinforced methods.  Acute tends to be a little more quick and dirty.

Protección de la via respiratoria

1.            Respire profundo y diga “a”.  Repite 10 veces asegurandose de respirar profundo antes de cada repetición.

2.            Haga el mismo ejercício de arriba, pero diciendo “i". 

3.            Cuente de 1 a 5 comenzando con un susurro y aumentando el vólumen de la vóz con cada numero, asi que, cuando llega a 5 está gritando.

4.            Vocalización  sostenida: diga “a” hasta que no aguante más.  Aumente la duración de la nota hasta que lo pueda hacer por 20 segundos sin dificultad. 

Airway Protection

1.            Take a deep breath, say “ah”.  Repeat 10 times making sure to take a big breath before each repetition.

2.      Do the above saying “ee”.

3.      Count from 1-5 starting with a whisper and increasing your voice intensity with each number so that by the time you reach number 5 you are shouting!

4.      Sustained Phonation: say /ah/ for as long as you can.  Increase the time you can hold the note until you can consistently hold for 20 seconds or more.