Association Between Menopause and Voice

The purpose of this study was to evaluate and clarify the effects of menopause on voice by comparing postmenopausal female participants who did not receive hormone therapy (HT) to premenopausal female participants.

The study included 50 postmenopausal women who had not undergone HT, as well as 50 premenopausal women. The acoustic voice analysis considered fundamental frequency (F0), jitter, shimmer, harmonic-to-noise ratio (HNR), and noise-to-harmonic ratio (NHR). Jitter is variations of F0, and shimmer is of peak amplitude. Experts completed the Grade, Roughness, Breathiness, Asthenia, Strain scale for perceptual assessment, while participants self-evaluated their voice using the Voice Handicap Index-10 (VHI-10).

Postmenopausal women had lower acoustic parameters (F0 [P = .01], G [P = .037], R [P = .011], and S [P = .031]) scores. Age had a link with G (r = 0.303, P = .002), R (r = 0.417, P < .001), A (r = 0.297, P = .003), and S (r = 0.370, P = .001) and the F0 (r = -0.455, P = .001). There was no significant difference in the VHI-10 (P = .526), jitter (P = .216), shimmer (P = .920), HNR (P = .261), and NHR (P = .301) values.

Postmenopausal women's voice have lower frequency, and perceptually-lower grade, roughness, and strain than premenopausal women; however, these changes do not affect their quality of life.