East Tallinn Central Hospital holds seminar in honour of World Voice Day

World Voice Day is celebrated on 16 April. To mark this occasion, East Tallinn Central Hospital is hosting a seminar today titled “Voice through the cycle of life”.

East Tallinn Central Hospital’s ear, nose and throat specialist Dr Kristel Kalling has been one of the promoters and organisers of World Voice Day in Estonia for many years now. Even though our voice and how we use it may seem obvious to us on a daily basis, Dr Kalling says we should pay more attention to it every now and again. “Celebrating World Voice Day is important, first and foremost, to draw more attention to voice and voice care, and to highlight the causes of voice disorders,” explains Kalling.

In addition to doctors and speech therapists from East Tallinn Central Hospital, specialists from other disciplines, singers, teachers and various voice specialists will also be giving presentations at the seminar. The seminar will be curated by Dr Kristel Kalling.

Talking points will include how our voices change over our lifespan, how medicinal products, supplements and male hormones affect the voice and what happens to speech acoustics over the course of our lives. Physiotherapy and music therapy to help prevent voice disorders throughout life will also be discussed.

The tradition of celebrating World Voice Day began in Brazil in 1999, when the Brazilian Society of Laryngology and Voice came up with the idea to dedicate 16 April to the voice and make it an annual event. Three years later, Mario Andrea, president of the European Laryngological Society, came up with the idea of celebrating Voice Day worldwide. Today, World Voice Day is celebrated with seminars, conferences and workshops around the world. World Voice Day as well as the study of the voice itself, is linked to various disciplines, such as medicine, speech-language pathology, music, physics, anatomy, phonetics, art, biology, etc.