September 10, 2007
This week wasn't too busy in the hearing clinic. Monday afternoon I saw a client who was having problems with her hearing aid. She received her aid in April. She had one dead ear and the thresholds in the other ear were about 60-70 dB. The client also had symptoms of otosclerosis and had a family history of female hearing loss.
Her chief complaint on the day of the hearing aid check was that she no longer heard the second "beep" when the aid was switching programs. She was also having difficulties hearing male voices. We made several programming adjustments to the threshold knee and to the gain output. The client seemed pleased with the adjustments and was told to come back if she had any other questions.
The client also taught me a valuable lesson in infection control. I noticed some open wounds on her arms and some redness in her ear canal, so I decided to use gloves when handling her hearing aid. After talking with the client, she told me she had a bacterial infection and was on medicine to clear it up. I am so glad that I used gloves to handle her aid and I definitely cleaned everything once we finished up. Infection control!!!
So since the client had the symptoms of otosclerosis, I wanted to find an article about it's treatment. The researchers in this article wanted to evaluate the functional results of stapes surgery and to compare the effectiveness of small fenestra stapedotomy with that of a total stapedectomy in improving hearing in patients affected by otosclerosis. The researchers found that the group who underwent the stapedectomy had a slightly greater air-bone gap post-surgery than those who had the stapedotomy. the the results were not statistically significant. The results showed no significant differences in thresholds between the two groups post-surgery. Group A's improvement after the surgery at 4000 Hz went from 56.60 to 47.66 dB (early post-operative assessment) and finally to 52.98 dB (late post-operative assessment). According to the study, the results showed that the technique of microtomy of the oval window was able to improve the hearing thresholds of these patients, especially at the higher frequencies.
Reference:
Marchese, M.R., Paludetti, G., De Corso, E., & Cianfrone F. (2007). Role of stapes surgery in improving hearing loss caused by otosclerosis. The Journal of Laryngology & Otology. 121, 438-443.
If you would like to read this article, please go to:
http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=5&hid=112&sid=c6dc561c-92a5-4318-8a77-dca884a689b1%40sessionmgr108
Her chief complaint on the day of the hearing aid check was that she no longer heard the second "beep" when the aid was switching programs. She was also having difficulties hearing male voices. We made several programming adjustments to the threshold knee and to the gain output. The client seemed pleased with the adjustments and was told to come back if she had any other questions.
The client also taught me a valuable lesson in infection control. I noticed some open wounds on her arms and some redness in her ear canal, so I decided to use gloves when handling her hearing aid. After talking with the client, she told me she had a bacterial infection and was on medicine to clear it up. I am so glad that I used gloves to handle her aid and I definitely cleaned everything once we finished up. Infection control!!!
So since the client had the symptoms of otosclerosis, I wanted to find an article about it's treatment. The researchers in this article wanted to evaluate the functional results of stapes surgery and to compare the effectiveness of small fenestra stapedotomy with that of a total stapedectomy in improving hearing in patients affected by otosclerosis. The researchers found that the group who underwent the stapedectomy had a slightly greater air-bone gap post-surgery than those who had the stapedotomy. the the results were not statistically significant. The results showed no significant differences in thresholds between the two groups post-surgery. Group A's improvement after the surgery at 4000 Hz went from 56.60 to 47.66 dB (early post-operative assessment) and finally to 52.98 dB (late post-operative assessment). According to the study, the results showed that the technique of microtomy of the oval window was able to improve the hearing thresholds of these patients, especially at the higher frequencies.
Reference:
Marchese, M.R., Paludetti, G., De Corso, E., & Cianfrone F. (2007). Role of stapes surgery in improving hearing loss caused by otosclerosis. The Journal of Laryngology & Otology. 121, 438-443.
If you would like to read this article, please go to:
http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=5&hid=112&sid=c6dc561c-92a5-4318-8a77-dca884a689b1%40sessionmgr108
posted by Diana @ 6:25 AM
1 Comments:
At 7:13 AM,
molly said…
I thought this was an interesting article. I did not know there could be much difference between small fenestra stapedectomy and stapes surgery. I didnt know much about these surgeries so this article was helpfulD!!
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