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American Family Physician Jul 2019More than 30 million U.S. adults have hearing loss. This condition is underrecognized, and hearing aids and other hearing enhancement technologies are underused. Hearing... (Review)
Review
More than 30 million U.S. adults have hearing loss. This condition is underrecognized, and hearing aids and other hearing enhancement technologies are underused. Hearing loss is categorized as conductive, sensorineural, or mixed. Age-related sensorineural hearing loss (i.e., presbycusis) is the most common type in adults. Several approaches can be used to screen for hearing loss, but the benefits of screening are uncertain. Patients may present with self-recognized hearing loss, or family members may observe behaviors (e.g., difficulty understanding conversations, increasing television volume) that suggest hearing loss. Patients with suspected hearing loss should undergo in-office hearing tests such as the whispered voice test or audiometry. Patients should then undergo examination for cerumen impaction, exostoses, and other abnormalities of the external canal and tympanic membrane, in addition to a neurologic examination. Sudden sensorineural hearing loss (loss of 30 dB or more within 72 hours) requires prompt otolaryngology referral. Laboratory evaluation is not indicated unless systemic illness is suspected. Computed tomography or magnetic resonance imaging is indicated in patients with asymmetrical hearing loss or sudden sensorineural hearing loss, and when ossicular chain damage is suspected. Treating cerumen impaction with irrigation or curettage is potentially curative. Other aspects of treatment include auditory rehabilitation, education, and eliminating or reducing use of ototoxic medications. Patients with sensorineural hearing loss should be referred to an audiologist for consideration of hearing aids. Patients with conductive hearing loss or sensorineural loss that does not improve with hearing aids should be referred to an otolaryngologist. Cochlear implants can be helpful for those with refractory or severe hearing loss.
Topics: Adult; Diagnosis, Differential; Hearing Loss; Hearing Tests; Humans
PubMed: 31305044
DOI: No ID Found -
Medecine Sciences : M/S May 2021Neonatal hearing screening has been developped in a large number of countries. The rational to build such nationwide programs is robust. The prevalence of hearing...
Neonatal hearing screening has been developped in a large number of countries. The rational to build such nationwide programs is robust. The prevalence of hearing impairment of various etiologies is high (1/1,000), diagnosis of hearing impairment in infants is uneasy and is made most of the time after the age of 18 months when treatment is less efficient and, last, appropriate test to screen for hearing impairment are available: Otoacoustic Emission and Auditory Evoked Potential. In France the screening is organised at the regional level. The organization of such a program is complexe. Midwifes and nurses should be trained to informed the parents and to perform the test. If the test is abnormal the infant will be oriented to a specialzed department of pediatrics for appropriate diagnosis and treatment.
Topics: Child; Evoked Potentials, Auditory, Brain Stem; Hearing Loss; Hearing Tests; Humans; Infant; Infant, Newborn; Neonatal Screening; Otoacoustic Emissions, Spontaneous
PubMed: 34003098
DOI: 10.1051/medsci/2021064 -
Bulletin of the World Health... Apr 2021
Topics: Hearing; Hearing Aids; Hearing Tests; Humans
PubMed: 33953438
DOI: 10.2471/BLT.21.285643 -
International Journal of Audiology Mar 2021The prevalence of unrecognised and late-diagnosed hearing loss is higher in low- and middle-income than in high-income countries, due in part to lack of access to...
OBJECTIVE
The prevalence of unrecognised and late-diagnosed hearing loss is higher in low- and middle-income than in high-income countries, due in part to lack of access to hearing services. Because hearing screening is important for early identification of hearing loss, development of an accessible, self-screening test that can detect hearing loss reliably and quickly would provide significant benefits, especially for underserved populations. This study aimed to develop and validate a new version of the digits-in-noise (DIN) test for Persian speaking countries.
DESIGN
Recordings of Persian digits 0-9 were binaurally presented in broadband speech-shaped noise. Using fitted speech intelligibility functions, digits were homogenised to achieve equal perceptual difficulty across stimuli. The evaluation was established by reference to existing English DIN tests.
STUDY SAMPLE
Thirty Persian speaking young adults with normal hearing thresholds (≤20 dB HL, 0.25-8 kHz).
RESULTS
Speech intelligibility functions produced a mean speech reception threshold (SRT) of -7.7 dB, corresponding closely to previously developed DIN tests. There was no significant difference between test and retest SRTs, indicating high reliability of the test. Our findings suggest that language-specific factors need to be considered for cross-language comparison of DIN-SRTs.
CONCLUSION
This study introduces a convenient tool for future hearing screening in Persian speaking countries with limited access to audiology services.
Topics: Auditory Threshold; Hearing Tests; Humans; Language; Reproducibility of Results; Speech Intelligibility; Speech Perception; Speech Reception Threshold Test; Young Adult
PubMed: 32903129
DOI: 10.1080/14992027.2020.1814969 -
HNO Mar 2019Hearing loss is a marker of risk for cognitive decline and dementia. Controlled hearing intervention studies of long-term cognitive outcomes are challenging, and thus... (Review)
Review
Hearing loss is a marker of risk for cognitive decline and dementia. Controlled hearing intervention studies of long-term cognitive outcomes are challenging, and thus the evidence for the impact of hearing interventions is primarily from observational studies and will likely continue to be from studies other than randomised controlled trials. Seven studies of hearing interventions with cognitive outcomes assessed over longer than 3 years are reviewed. Most were of low-to-moderate quality. One cochlear implant study had indeterminate findings. Of six hearing aid studies, three reported a positive impact of hearing aid use while three reported no impact of hearing aid use on cognitive decline or incident cognitive impairment. Further studies are required to elucidate the benefit of hearing interventions on long-term cognitive outcomes. Research should include objectively ascertained hearing data, theoretically motivated cognitive outcomes including dementia subtypes, characterisation, and control for confounds and application of advanced statistical modelling to test causal hypotheses.
Topics: Cochlear Implants; Dementia; Hearing Aids; Hearing Loss; Hearing Tests; Humans
PubMed: 30767054
DOI: 10.1007/s00106-019-0617-7 -
International Journal of Environmental... May 2021Identifying and treating hearing loss can help improve communication skills, which often leads to improved quality of life. Many people do not seek medical treatment...
BACKGROUND
Identifying and treating hearing loss can help improve communication skills, which often leads to improved quality of life. Many people do not seek medical treatment and, therefore, go undiagnosed for an extended period before realizing they have hearing loss. This study presents a self-administered, low-cost, smartphone-based hearing test application (HearTest) to quantify the pure-tone hearing thresholds of a user. The HearTest application can be used with commercially available smartphone devices and an earphone with the mentioned specification.
METHODS
Air-conduction-based pure-tone audiometry for the smartphone application was designed and implemented to detect hearing thresholds using a traditional "10 dB down and 5 dB up" approach. Employed smartphone-earphone combination was calibrated with respect to a GSI-61 audiometer and insert earphone ER-3A to maintain clinical standards with the help of subjective testing on 20 normal-hearing (NH) participants.
RESULTS
Further subjective testing on 14 participants with NH and retesting on five participants showed that HearTest achieves high-accuracy audiogram within clinically acceptable limits (≤10 dB HL mean difference) when compared with the reference clinical audiometer. Hardware challenges and limitations in air-conduction-based hearing tests through smartphones and ways to improve their accuracy and reliability are discussed.
CONCLUSION
The proposed smartphone application provides a simple, affordable, and reliable means for people to learn more about their hearing health without needing access to a formal clinical facility.
Topics: Audiometry, Pure-Tone; Auditory Threshold; Humans; Quality of Life; Reproducibility of Results; Smartphone
PubMed: 34064080
DOI: 10.3390/ijerph18115529 -
Function (Oxford, England) 2022
Topics: Hearing; Hearing Tests
PubMed: 35402920
DOI: 10.1093/function/zqab068 -
European Archives of... Aug 2021The decline of sensory systems during aging has been widely investigated and several papers have correlated the visual, hearing and vestibular systems and the... (Review)
Review
PURPOSE
The decline of sensory systems during aging has been widely investigated and several papers have correlated the visual, hearing and vestibular systems and the consequences of their functional degeneration. Hearing loss and presbyvestibulopathy have been found to be positively correlated as is with the risk-to-fall.
MATERIAL AND METHODS
The present study was therefore designed as systematic review (due to PRISMA criteria) which should correlate hearing amplification by hearing aids and/or cochlear implants with balance outcome. However, the literature review (Cochrane, PubMed) revealed ten paper (prospective, controlled trials and acute trials) with heterogenous patient popiulations and non-uniform outcome measures (i.e., gait analysis, questionnaires, postural stabilometry) so that no quantitative, statistical analysis could be performed.
RESULTS
The qualitative analysis oft he identified studies showed that hearing amplification in the elderly improves spatio-temporal orientation (particularly with cochlear implants) and that the process of utilizing auditory information for balance control takes some time (i.e., the neuroplasticity-based, learning processes), usually some months in cochlear implantees.
DISCUSSION
Hearing and balance function degenerate independently from each other and large interindividual differences require a separate neurotological examination of each patient. However, hearing amplification is most helpful to improve postural stability, particularly in the elderly. Future research should focus on controlled, prospective clinical trials where a standardized test battery covering the audiological and neurotological profile of each elderly patient pre/post prescription of hearing aids and/or cochlear implantation should be followed up (for at least 1 year) so that also the balance improvements and the risk-to-fall can be reliably assessed (e.g., by mobile posturography and standardized questionnaires, e.g., the DHI).
Topics: Aged; Cochlear Implantation; Cochlear Implants; Hearing; Hearing Aids; Hearing Tests; Humans; Male; Prospective Studies
PubMed: 33034732
DOI: 10.1007/s00405-020-06414-9 -
Journal of Korean Medical Science Mar 2022Hearing loss (HL) is the most common chronic disease and has been linked to negative health outcomes. Hearing aids (HAs) are regarded as the gold standard for HL...
BACKGROUND
Hearing loss (HL) is the most common chronic disease and has been linked to negative health outcomes. Hearing aids (HAs) are regarded as the gold standard for HL management, however, the adoption rate of HAs is relatively low for various reasons. With this background, hearing devices, such as personal sound amplification products (PSAPs) received significant attention as an alternative to conventional HAs. This study aimed to evaluate the clinical efficacy of PSAPs in patients with mild to moderately severe HL.
METHODS
Nineteen patients with mild hearing loss (MHL), 23 with moderate hearing loss (MDHL), and 15 with moderately severe hearing loss (MSHL) participated in the study. Electroacoustic analysis, simulated real-ear measurements (REMs), and three clinical evaluations were implemented.
RESULTS
All devices satisfied the electroacoustic tolerances. All devices provided sufficient gain for MHL and MDHL audiograms. However, in MSHL audiogram, the gains of PSAPs were insufficient, especially for high frequencies. In terms of clinical evaluations, sound-field audiometry showed significant improvements between aided and unaided thresholds in all groups for all devices ( < 0.001). Significant improvements of word recognition scores were only shown for HAs between aided and unaided conditions. The Korean version of the Hearing In Noise Test did not show any consistent findings for all devices and groups.
CONCLUSION
Certain PSAPs are beneficial for improving hearing and speech perception in patients with HL. Well-chosen PSAPs could be an alternative hearing rehabilitation option for these patients.
Topics: Hearing; Hearing Aids; Hearing Loss; Hearing Tests; Humans; Speech Perception
PubMed: 35347902
DOI: 10.3346/jkms.2022.37.e94 -
Telemedicine Journal and E-health : the... Oct 2019
Topics: Audiometry, Pure-Tone; Auditory Threshold; Child; Computers, Handheld; Female; Hearing Loss; Hearing Tests; Humans; Interviews as Topic; Male; Patient Preference; Qualitative Research
PubMed: 30359209
DOI: 10.1089/tmj.2018.0163