Effectiveness of Teletherapy in Managing Voice Disorders: A Systematic Review

Telerehabilitation has developed as one of the important aspects of health care delivery in the current era. Hence the present study aimed to systematically review the literature and understand the effectiveness of teletherapy in the management of voice disorders. A comprehensive search was performed in the PUBMED, CINAHL, and Scopus databases using Boolean operators, adhering to the PRISMA. The methodological quality of the selected studies was assessed using the ROBINS-I tool. The review included 12 articles meeting the inclusion criteria, featuring various study designs. All studies reported positive outcomes from televoice therapy intervention across multiple voice outcome measures, irrespective of whether participants received direct or indirect or a combination of voice therapy techniques. Studies comparing teletherapy with face-to-face therapy indicated that teletherapy is as effective as in-person therapy. However, the overall risk of bias assessment for the included studies, using the ROBINS-I tool, ranged from moderate to serious. This systematic review revealed that teletherapy is a feasible alternative to in-person therapy for voice disorders. However, there is a need to understand the effectiveness of teletherapy in demonstrating different voice therapy techniques. Further studies are needed to understand the application of various/particular voice therapy techniques via telepractice.