Effect of facemask use on respiratory patterns of women in speech and singing.

PURPOSE: Research into respiratory behavior during singing and speech makes extensive use of standard respiratory and vented pneumotachograph facemasks. This study investigated whether the use of such facemasks would affect respiratory behavior in terms of lung volume (excursion, at initiation and at termination) or duration (of inspiration and of expiration) during speech or singing.
METHOD: The respiratory patterns of 6 females were recorded using uniaxial surface magnetometry during 4 tasks: quiet breathing, a /pa/ syllabic train, reading ("The Rainbow Passage"), and singing a Christmas carol ("Silent night"). Each task was performed in 4 facemask conditions: wearing no facemask, wearing a facemask rim only, wearing a standard respiratory facemask, and wearing a vented pneumotachograph facemask.
RESULTS: No significant effect was found for any of the facemask conditions on lung volume or duration measures during any tasks.
CONCLUSION: The results confirm earlier studies that the vented pneumotachograph facemask does not affect breathing behavior in speech research studies and extends the finding to the study of breathing behavior in singing and to the use of a standard respiratory facemask.