｜Length : 50min ｜Year : 2024 ｜

"A ‘voice’ is a person’s life… You can save a voice, but you cannot make them happy," reflects a doctor. Hiroyuki Tashima, a 63-year-old truck driver, lost his voice after a laryngectomy due to stage 4 throat cancer. His primary physician is Dr. Naoki Nishio at Nagoya University Hospital’s Otorhinolaryngology Department.
Hiroyuki now uses an electrolarynx to produce his ‘voice,’ but the sound is monotone.
Unable to speak in a loud ‘voice,’ daily interactions, including work and shopping, are challenging. Hiroyuki’s dream is to speak again with his 2-year-old granddaughter, Ayano, using his original voice.
This dream may come true with the ‘Save the Voice Project,’ led by Dr. Nishio and started in 2021.
The project aims to develop an app that can convert the mechanical sound of an electrolarynx into a person's natural voice. This innovation could give a ‘voice’ back to 30,000 people in Japan who have lost theirs.　This program follows the project’s progress over a year and a half since 2022.