ABSTRACT
Objective To investigate the relationships of tone burst -ABR Thresholds and the pure -tone audiograms in normal hearing adults .Methods The response thresholds of Tone burst -ABR and the pure -tone audiogram were recorded from 34 adult(68 ears) at 0 .5 ,1 .0 ,2 .0 ,and 4 .0 kHz .The results were statistically ana-lyzed .The correlation of the response thresholds of tone burst -ABR and the pure-tone audiogram were studied . Results At 0 .5 ,1 .0 ,2 .0 ,4 .0 kHz ,the averages of the response thresholds of tone burst -ABR were 27 .43 ± 3 .29 ,25 .98 ± 2 .76 ,16 .78 ± 2 .37 ,and 12 .42 ± 2 .64 dB nHL ,respectively .The averages of the pure -tone audio-gram were 12 .23 ± 3 .99 ,11 .82 ± 2 .56 ,9 .58 ± 3 .23 ,and 9 .92 ± 2 .59 dB nHL ,respectively .The differences between the response thresholds of tone burst -ABR and the pure-tone audiogram were 12 .13 ± 4 .51 ,11 .43 ± 3 .66 ,7 .61 ± 2 .43 ,and 7 .17 ± 1 .32 dB ,respectively .At 0 .5 ,1 .0 ,2 .0 ,and 4 .0 kHz ,Pearson correlation coefficients were 0 .69 ,0 .79 ,0 .84 ,0 .89 ,respectively .Conclusion The tone burst -ABR and the pure -tone audiogram thresholds were a highly correlated with each other ,especially at 2 .0 kHz and 4 .0 kHz .Tone burst -ABR has the frequency specificity ,which can response the hearing level better .
ABSTRACT
Objective: Hearing loss is the public health problem affecting all the age groups. For the assessment of hearing loss pure tone audiogram (PTA) is the gold standard but cannot be easily available in rural areas. So, the main aim of our study is to see the correlation of numeric rating scale with the pure tone audiogram for assessing the hearing loss. Materials and methods: This was the prospective, non randomized and longitudinal study performed in two hundred patients with unilateral hearing loss. For the study purpose, the numeric rating scale (NRS) was divided into 5 parts as that of degree of hearing loss and the PTAwas also divided into 5 parts to see the correlation with the NRS findings. The analysis was done using SPSS 16.0 Software. Results: The total frequency of unilateral hearing loss was 1.79%. 125(62.5%) patients fell within 16 – 25years.The mean age was 23.2+/-9.7.Females were affected more than males. Most of the patients who were in high school had unilateral hearing loss. Students and housewives accounted for 87.5%. 89% patients had conductive hearing loss, 10% had sensorineural hearing loss whereas only 1% patients had mixed hearing loss. The most of patients reported NRS2 and NRS3 which was 85.5%. Regarding the PTA analysis, 91% patients fell within mild and moderate hearing loss. There was high degree of correspondence in mild hearing loss between NRS and PTA. The Pearson’s correlation showed the statistically significant correlation between NRS and PTA with p=0.00 Conclusion: The NRS scale can be used as an optional measure for PTAin assessing the hearing loss mainly in rural areas for screening where there is lack of PTA.
ABSTRACT
Objective To explore the signal-to-noise ratio loss (SNR loss) of the people with normal pure-tone audiograms .Methods A group of 10 patients were recruited into the study ,who complained they could not hear speech clearly in the real world environment but had normal pure-tone audiograms ,immittance and word rec-ognition score (WRS) results .The Mandarin hearing in noise test (M-HINT ) was administered to them and the results were compared to the normal ranges published in the journal .Results All of them had SNR loss when noise (speech spectrum) came from front of them ,but 9 patients had SNR loss when noise came from 90 degree left or 90 degree right of them .Conclusion The current study showed the patients had speech hearing loss in the noisy envi-ronment ,regardless of whether they had normal audiograms ,immittance and WRS results .So we should pay atten-tion to such patients and adopt some special tests (eg M-HINT) .It is better for us to communicate and counsel with them .