A Patient with Hearing Loss Whose Hearing and Communication Ability Improved with Kampo Treatment Combined with Use of Hearing Aids / 日本東洋医学雑誌

The use of hearing aids may not be sufficiently helpful for elderly people with advanced bilateral hearing loss when conversing with others. The patient in this case was an 82-­year­-old man whose main complaint was difficulty in verbal communication with his family despite using hearing aids. He was diagnosed with ad­vanced bilateral sensorineural hearing loss using Western medicine techniques. He was first prescribed the Kampo formulation, ryokeijutsukanto, followed by goshajinkigan. Later, he took a combination of both of these Kampo formulations, and his hearing ability improved. Pure tone audiometry and speech audiometry demonstrated hearing loss ;however, speech audiometry better reflected his improvement in hearing speech sounds after he began taking the Kampo formulations. Thus, in this case, the patient's hearing and communica­tion abilities improved with Kampo formulations combined with the use of hearing aids. In the future, speech audiometry (maximum discrimination score) can be applied to evaluate the efficacy of Kampo treatment for hearing loss.