Trade.Information

Vocal fold (Vocal Cord) Bowing

Muscle tension pattern:
Vocal folds (also called vocal cords; see the explanation of this terminology) don't come together to vibrate. Instead, they leave a gap, allowing air to leak through. See our multimedia gallery for pictures.

Sound of Voice:

Weak, breathy, hollow, backward, sometimes rough or scratchy.

Complaints:

Fatigue from voice use, undependable voice, sense of effort when talking, poor volume, voice gets weaker with continued talking.

Cause:

Usually over exertion, sometimes when individual is in poor condition (vocal fold bowing is sometimes referred to as presbylarynges, which means "the laryngeal status of old age"). This assumes that the vocal folds are bowed because the muscle in the vocal folds has atrophied (wasted away) due to old age. Senior citizens are often told that they must accept their voice quality as a natural part of getting old. Other times, surgery is offered to "plump up" the vocal folds in order to get them to come together again. In the Lions Voice Clinic, we see many individuals of all ages with vocal fold bowing. Also, the senior citizens we see with vocal fold bowing range in voice use from minimal to very heavy voice use. This suggests to us that bowing is not just caused by wasting away of the muscles. We believe it is more often caused by compensatory muscle tension, usually in the anterior-posterior direction, which squeezes the vocal folds apart.

Treatment:
In the Lions Voice Clinic, we treat bowing successfully with functional therapy, in a wide variety of individuals. We rarely find that surgery is necessary.