The voice sign in chorea : technic of elicitation / Walter B. Swift, M.D., Inspector in Neuropathology, Tuft's College Medical School, Boston ; in charge Voice Clinic, Boston State Hospital, Psychopathic Dept., Boston.

  • Swift, Walter Babcock, 1868-
Date:
1915
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The voice sign in chorea : technic of elicitation / Walter B. Swift, M.D., Inspector in Neuropathology, Tuft's College Medical School, Boston ; in charge Voice Clinic, Boston State Hospital, Psychopathic Dept., Boston. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    ELICITATION STUDIES IN NEUROLOGIC TECHNIC NO. 3* WALTER B. SWIFT, M.D. Instructor in Neuropathology, Tuft’s College Medical School, Boston; in charge Voice Clinic, Boston State Hospital, Psychopathic Dept. BOSTON Previously* 1 a preliminary note has been published on the voice sign in chorea, and following that a further study2 of this sign in a series of cases. As a number of requests have come, since these publications, for the technic of elicitation employed to find this sign in the voice, I there¬ fore present here briefly the method used. TECHNIC The patient is allowed to sit or stand easily. The purpose is to obtain a fair amount of body relaxation. The operator, as an example to the patient, takes a deep inhalation and sounds for from fifteen to twenty seconds the vowel “a” as in “are.” Then instruction is given to the patient as follows: “Do that.” This is an easy method to elicit the imitation of a prolonged vowel sound. If merely instructions are proffered they are usually not at first understood, and so it takes quite a time to explain a long breath, a prolonged tone and just the exact tone desired. All this time and trouble is saved by the examiner’s performance of the sound desired and trusting to imitation to bring the product desired. The operator should then watch the sound produced and note any variation in it caused by the choreic contractions. If during this pro¬ longation of “a” as in “are” a contraction occurs in the expiratory muscles, the sound will markedly change in intensity and for the rest of the utterance, or until the occurrence of another contraction, the * Studies in Neurological Technique, No. 1: The Points in Jendrassik’s Method of Eliciting the Patella Reflex, Alienist and Neurologist, 1913, xxxiv, No. 3. * Studies in Neurological Technique, No. 2. Indication and Method for the Use of Electrical Reenforcement for the Elicitation of Absent Reflexes, Rev. Neurol, and Psychiat., January or February, 1915. 1. Swift, Walter B.: A Voice Sign in Chorea, Am. Jour. Child. Dis., June, 1914, p. 422. 2. Swift, Walter B.: Further Analysis of the Voice Sign in Chorea, Am. Jour. Child. Dis., October, 1914, p. 279.