Translation and Adaptation of the Nijmegen Cochlear Implant Questionnaire in Hindi: A Health-Related Quality of Life Questionnaire for Adults with Cochlear Implants.

Nijmegen Cochlear Implant Questionnaire is an HRQoL tool that was developed by Dutch researchers to assess the QoL in adult CI users in the English language. It is used to measure the impact of the use of CI on the daily life situations of its users, on the perception of speech sounds, and on the cost-benefit assessment CI in adult CI users. There is no specific instrument available to assess the QoL in adult CI users in India, hence there was a need to take up this study. The primary aim of the study was to adapt and translate NCIQ into Hindi with a secondary aim to describe the effect of CI on quality of life in adult CI users. For translation, permission was taken from the authors of the original tool. The Forward-backward translation method was utilized for translation. The final version of the NCIQ-H was administered to the study participants (25 no.) 25, aged 18-60 years; High School as the minimum level of education; post-lingual hearing impairment, and CI use ≥ 12 months. The Cronbach's α coefficient was calculated for all domains and subdomains in the NCIQ-H showed the overall reliability of the questionnaire (0.82), showing good internal consistency. The CI users reported high scores across all the domains indicating improved quality of life. No significant correlation was found between the CI usage time and NCIQ scores on Spearman's correlation test. Also, there was no significant difference in NCIQ-H scores between genders on the Kruskal-Wallis test. The NCIQ (H) can be used to assess QoL in adults with cochlear implants. The scores suggest improvement in physical, social and psychological domains of life. No correlation was observed between the NCIQ-H scores and duration of CI usage as well as with gender differences.

Efficacy of Jellow app as an adjunct to stimulation therapy in improvement in language and quality of life in patients with chronic Broca's Aphasia.

Purpose: Stimulation approach is a therapy technique to improve language production using auditory and visual stimulation. Jellow app is a mobile app designed for compensating for impaired language skills and may be used in the intervention of persons with aphasia. The study aimed to determine the benefits of using the Jellow app as a facilitator of stimulus therapy to improve language and psychosocial domains in chronic Broca's Aphasia.Methods: Ten right-handed male adults with Broca's Aphasia were assessed on WAB and SIQOL39g tests. The control group (n = 5) was enrolled only for stimulation therapy. Pictures of objects were used for therapy with the help of auditory or auditory and visual cues. In the study group (n = 5), along with stimulus therapy, subjects were also trained on the use of icons in the Jellow app to facilitate functional communication needs. After six-months tests were readministered. Results: Post-therapy, on WAB, the improvement in spontaneous speech, repetition, and naming were found to be significantly more in the study group (4.6 ± 0.55, 4.89 ± 0.56, 5.74 ± 0.24 respectively) than the control group (2.6 ± 0.89, 3.22 ± 0.49, 3.97 ± 0.3 respectively) on 2-sample t-test. Similarly, significantly more improvement was seen in the communication domain of SAQOL39g in the study group (2.03 ± 0.17) compared to the control group (1.14 ± 0.45).Conclusion: Use of the Jellow app may be a beneficial adjunct to stimulation therapy for improving linguistic abilities and quality of life in persons with chronic Broca's aphasia.IMPLICATIONS FOR REHABILITATIONFollowing are the implications of this study in the rehabilitation of persons with chronic Broca's Aphasia:• Multimodality in therapy approach in traditional stimulation therapy is beneficial.• AAC Apps like the Jellow app can be used as an adjunct to the traditional stimulation approach of language intervention which facilitates the language abilities like spontaneous speech, repetition, and naming.• Language improvement due to rehabilitation is beneficial in improving the quality of life in this population.• The caregivers must be involved in the therapy program as they act as communication partners and can repeat the therapy tasks at home.• Similar type of study is warranted in a larger population so that people with chronic Broca's aphasia may get the benefit of the latest technology which may be cheaper and easier to use.

Relation of distortion product otoacoustic emission and tinnitus in normal hearing patients: a pilot study.

INTRODUCTION: Tinnitus, the perception of the sound in the absence of an external acoustic source, disrupts the daily life 1 out of every 200 adults, yet its physiological basis remains largely a mystery. The generation of tinnitus is commonly linked with the impaired functioning of the outer hair cells (OHC) inside the cochlea. Otoacoustic emissions are the objective test used to assess their activity. OBJECTIVE: The objective of the investigation was to study the features of Distortion product OtoAcoustic emissions (DPOAE) in a group of tinnitus patients with normal hearing and to find out whether there is any difference in DPOAE findings in the tinnitus patients with normal hearing and in persons with normal hearing with no complaint of tinnitus. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The participants consisted of two groups. The subject group consisted of 16 ears of patients, in which 6 subjects were having tinnitus in both ears while 4 subjects were having tinnitus only in one ear. All subjects were aged between 20 to 60 years with complaint of tinnitus with audiometrically normal hearing. Control group was comprised of 16 audiometrically normal hearing ears of persons who were age and gender matched with the subject groups and had no complaint of tinnitus. Both the subject group as well as control group was subjected for DPOAE test. Findings of both the groups were compared using the unpaired t test. RESULT AND CONCLUSION: It was observed that the amplitudes of DPOAE were significantly lower in tinnitus patients than that of persons without complaint of tinnitus, at a frequency of 1281-1560, 5120-6250, 7243-8837 Hz, which imply that decrease of DPOAEs amplitudes may be related to the presence of tinnitus. It can be concluded that there is association between tinnitus and reduced OHC activity which indicate the OHC of cochlea are involved in the generation of tinnitus.