Evaluation of the electrolarynx in the short-term hospital setting.

We evaluated the effectiveness of the electrolarynx as a communication tool in the short-term hospital setting with 22 tracheostomized patients. Following an initial training period, we found that 14 of 22 patients achieved good results in communicating with the electrolarynx, three patients had fair results, and five patients had poor results. There were no differences in success rates for older or younger patients or for men or women; we could not correlate specific disease diagnosis with success or failure. The instrument could be effectively cleaned at the bedside. With the exception of patients who are severely confused or who have undergone extensive head and neck surgery, all tracheostomized patients can be considered candidates for this method of communication.