PURPOSE: to analyze acoustic measures in elderly women's voices. METHODS: ninth six elderly women, with ages between 60 and 103-year old, were recruited and separated in tree groups according to their ages. RESULTS: the values of fundamental frequency were 193. 81 Hz (Group 1), 195.71 (Group 2) and 187.60 Hz (Group 3). The Maximum phonatory extension were 42.10 semitones (Group 1); 37.29 semitones (Group 2) and 38.75 semitones (Group 3). The values of the minimum frequency and maximum frequency were respectively 103.62 Hz and 1099.1 Hz (Group 1); 102.28 Hz and 918.10 Hz (Group 2) and 88.73 Hz and 876.8 Hz (Group 3). The maximum phonation time of the vowel /a/ were 8.54 seconds (Group 1), 7.97 seconds (Group 2) and 7.52 seconds (Group 3). For the vowel /i/ the values were 8.82 seconds (Group 1), 8.44 seconds (Group 2) and 8.05 seconds (Group 3). For the vowel /u/ were 9.22 seconds (Group 1), 8.09 seconds (Group 2) and 7.95 seconds (Group 3). CONCLUSION: elderly women showed lower values of fundamental frequency and maximum phonation time. Maximum phonatory extension measure was similar to those found in young adults. All studied measures showed a decreasing trend with advancing age.
Voice; Aging; Speech Acoustics
