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Hmmm, Is There a Cure for Spasmodic Dysphonia?
BY JIM WALTZER
If you agree with Mort Cooper, Ph.D.,
by mouthing a reflexive "uh huh," you’re bound to
receive a pat on the back for good vocal delivery.
"That's putting the voice in the
lips and the nose where it belongs," says the Los Angeles-based
speech-language pathologist and voice specialist. "You've got
to get it out of the lower throat and into the 'mask'."
Few members of the medical community
agree with Dr. Cooper, however, when it comes to diagnosing and
treating spasmodic dysphonia, an involuntary movement of the vocal
cords commonly referred to as "strangled voice."
Waging a decades-old battle for recognition
and respectability, Dr. Cooper says the medical establishment continues
to label SD a neurological problem, but that the condition is essentially
a 'mechanical misuse of the speaking voice.' He maintains that his
methods have restored speech for hundreds of people otherwise doomed
to a lifetime of chronic hoarseness of speaking words at 45 rpm
on a 33-rpm turntable.
"The American Speech-Language
and Hearing Association indicates there are no cures (for SD),"
says the controversial Dr. Cooper. "That position is untenable."
Who is this masked man?
A former director of the Voice and
Speech Clinic at UCLA Medical Center, Dr. Cooper claimed a 98 percent
SD recovery rate as early as 1974. (The results of his study were
published by the Journal of Speech and Hearing Disorders.) According
to Dr. Cooper, other studies and referrals from top medical centers
followed, and his cure rate remained high.
"But they (the medical centers)
will not go on record," says Dr. Cooper. "It's politically
incorrect."
"That's because grant monies flow
from the assumption that SD has a neurological basis," insists
Dr. Cooper, who adds that 'critics' claim his success stories are
not true SD cases. "Or they say the cure doesn't last,"
he says. "But I follow up my patients for seven to nine years
after discharge, and they remain in excellent (vocal) condition."
To rescue the strangled voice, Dr.
Cooper says he practices "direct voice rehabilitation"
rather than conventional speech therapy. The Dr. Cooper Instant
Voice Press locates and individual's "natural voice" through
proper breathing and a series of vocal exercises that shift sounds
from the throat to the mouth. Patients hum "Happy Birthday,"
say various "buzz words," clear their throats (ahem) and
say "uh huh" until it hurts.
It may not be the prescription for
Luciano Pavorotti, but Dr. Cooper says it works for people with
SD.
"I use pitch as a prop to get
the right focus, and breath support follows," he says.
"There's no secret here, I have
videos that show before and after." They (SD patients) are
talking without air...squeezing it out. That can happen as a result
of trauma, or over a long period of misusing the speaking voice."
But it doesn't result form a neurological
deficit, according to Dr. Cooper, whose view-point isn't shared
by most of his peers. Even those who acknowledge his successes and
the existence of "non-organic" SD emphasize that most
cases are of neurological origin. And these, they say, cannot be
remedied short of paralyzing the vocal cords with an injection of
substances such as botulinum toxin.
Not so, says Dr. Cooper, who decries
the "poisoning" of the vocal cords and sees reflux medication,
allergy shots and deviated septum surgery as pointless and unnecessary.
His techniques, he says, work for both types of SD: abductor (characterized
by breathiness or tremor) and adductor (deep-throat strangulation
a la Henry Kissinger).
"Medicine is not trained to judge
this - there are only six hours of voice training (in medical school),"
says Dr. Cooper. "They're not touching the variables that make
a difference. Medicine has called this (SD) 'hopeless.' Since the
first diagnosis in 1871, there have been no cures due to medical
intervention.
"But I've reported hundreds of
cures in the last 20 years, and anyone who's interested can do what
I'm doing."
Hmmm (another vocalism that nicely
reaches the "mask") - sounds like a clear difference of
opinion. Does Dr. Cooper plan to continue with his refrain?
Uh huh.
Jim Waltzer is a free-lance writer
from King of Prussia, Pa., and a frequent contributor to ADVANCE.
Clarifications
In the April article, "Hmm, Is
There a Cure for Spasmodic Dysphonia," Mort Cooper, PhD, clarifies
that he has a number of cures of spasmodic dysphonia, not a success
ratio of 98 percent.
ADVANCE FOR DIRECTORS IN REHABILITATION
Volume 5/Number 4 - April 1996
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