The Rehabilitation Of Conductive Hearing Impairment

Amplification by bone conduction in congenital malformations: patient benefits and satisfaction

Hearing loss is one of the most common clinical findings in subjects with malformations of the ear. Treatment consists of surgery and/or adapt a hearing aid amplification by bone (HA VO). Early intervention is critical to auditory stimulation and development of speech and language.

OBJECTIVE

To characterize the audiological profile of subjects with congenital malformation of the external ear and/or middle and evaluate the benefit and satisfaction of using HA VO.

METHOD

A descriptive study, subjects with bilateral congenital malformations of the external ear and/or middle, conductive or mixed hearing loss, moderate or severe and HA VO users. Evaluation of the benefit test using sentence recognition in noise and measures of functional gain and satisfaction assessment questionnaire using international IQ - HA.

RESULTS

13 subjects were evaluated, 61% were male and 80% with moderate conductive hearing loss or severe. There was better performance in the evaluation proposal, provided with HA when compared to the condition without HA.

CONCLUSION

HA VO showed advantages for the population studied and should be considered as an option for intervention. Satisfaction was confirmed by elevated scores obtained in IQ - HA.

Direct measurement of the wavelength of sound waves in the human skull

The results of a study of the three-dimensional vibration of two dry human skulls in response to harmonic excitation are presented. The vibratory response exhibits three distinct types of motion across the range of audible frequencies. At low frequencies below 1000 Hz, whole-head quasi-rigid motion is seen. At the middle frequencies between 1000 and 6000 Hz, the motion exhibits a series of increasingly complex modal patterns. Above 6000 Hz, the response is wavelike and clear wavefronts can be distinguished in the vibration data. In this regime the relationship between wavelength and frequency is calculated and compared to a number of theories of skull vibration that have been proposed.

Management of Complications in Neurotology

Neurotologic and skull base surgery involves working around important neurovascular and neurotologic structures and can incur unwarranted complications. Knowledge of surgical anatomy, good preoperative planning, intraoperative monitoring, and excellent microsurgical technique contribute to minimizing and avoiding complications. In the event of a complication, however, the neurotologic surgeon should be prepared to manage it. In this article, the authors focus on the management of complications encountered in neurotologic skull base surgery, including hemorrhage, stroke, cerebrospinal fluid leak, extraocular motility deficits, facial paralysis, hearing loss, dizziness, lower cranial nerve palsies, and postoperative headache.

Negative consequences of hearing impairment in old age: a longitudinal analysis

To determine whether functional and psychosocial outcomes associated with hearing impairment are a direct result or stem from prevalent comorbidity, we analyzed the impact of two levels of reported hearing impairment on health and psychosocial functioning one year later with adjustments for baseline chronic conditions. Physical functioning, mental health, and social functioning decreased in a dose-response pattern for those with progressive levels of hearing impairment compared with those reporting no impairment. Our results demonstrate an independent impact of hearing impairment on functional outcomes, reveal increasing problems with higher levels of impairment, and support the importance of preventing and treating this highly prevalent condition.