In the conceptual framework describe in the brief summary section of this document, this observational longitudinal monocentric study will include consecutive patients admitted in a specialised respiratory medicine ward for acute respiratory episodes. Any such episode will be considered be it de novo or complicating an underlying chronic respiratory disease. Vocal recordings will be performed daily, and will be analysed according to standard in the fields. Clinical parameters will also be recorded daily (vital signs, treatment intensity, outcome -including requirement for treatment intensification, transfer to the ICU, death, discharge to rehabilitation facility, discharge to home). The clinical follow-up and the vocal follow-up will be confronted to determine if voice analysis has an intrinsic prognostic value, alone, or in combination with clinical signs.
Breathing is an automatic vital function that has the peculiarity of being controllable voluntary for actions other than breathing. Speech production is a characteristic example of use of the respiratory system for nonrespiratory purposes. A healthy respiratory system is necessary for speech to be adequately produced and modulated. In patients with respiratory diseases, it becomes difficult to interfere with an automatic control of breathing that is intensely active to compensate for the respiratory deficience. Speech production is impeded, and, reciprocally, speech can generate dyspnea. This study explores the hypothesis that longitudinal changes in speech characteristics will parallel the clinical evolution of acute respiratory episodes. The aim is to validate such changes as prognostic indicators, in the perspective of future telemedicine applications. The hypothesis tested is that of an association between :~vocal abnormalities at inclusion (assessed in relation to known data within a normal population (database of holy subjects already constituted) and the initial clinical severity (assessed according to the usual clinical and gasometric criteria):~the evolution of vocal abnormalities during the stay and the clinical evolution.