Paper:
Language: English:

Expert System-Type Approach to Voice Disorders: Scheduling Botulinum Toxin Treatment for Adductor Spasmodic Dysphonia

Anthony P. Salvatore^, Amitava Biswas^, Vladik Kreinovich^,
Bertha Manriquez^, Michael P. Cannito^, and Robert J. Sinard^*

^University of Texas at El Paso, 500 W. University, El Paso, TX 79968, USA
^Speech and Hearing Center, School of Audiology and Speech-Language Pathology, The University of Memphis, Memphis, TN 38105, USA
^Department of Otolaryngology, University of Texas, Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, 5323 Harry Hines Boulevard, Dallas, TX 75390, USA

Received: February 22, 2005

Accepted: December 21, 2005

Keywords: expert systems, voice disorders

Journal ref: Journal of Advanced Computational Intelligence and Intelligent Informatics, Vol.10, No.3 pp. 332-338, 2006

Abstract

One of the most debilitating voice disorders is adductor spasmodic dysphonia (ADSD), a voice disorder caused by involuntary movements of the muscles of the larynx (voice box). For treating ADSD, botulinum toxin (BT) injections turned out to be very useful. However, the effects of BT are highly variable, so at present, there is no objective criterion of when such a BT treatment is necessary. It is therefore desirable to develop such a criterion.

In this paper, we show that traditional statistical techniques are unable to generate such a criterion, while a natural expert system approach seems to be capable of generating reasonably simple rules that determine when a BT treatment is necessary.

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