The design of a randomized control trial of exoskeletal-assisted walking in the home and community on quality of life in persons with chronic spinal cord injury.

There are more than 300,000 estimated cases of spinal cord injury (SCI) in the United States, and approximately 27,000 of these are Veterans. Immobilization from SCI results in adverse secondary medical conditions and reduced quality of life. Veterans with SCI who have completed rehabilitation after injury and are unable to ambulate receive a wheelchair as standard of care. Powered exoskeletons are a technology that offers an alternative form of limited mobility by enabling over-ground walking through an external framework for support and computer-controlled motorized hip and knee joints. Few studies have reported the safety and efficacy for use of these devices in the home and community environments, and none evaluated their impact on patient-centered outcomes through a randomized clinical trial (RCT). Absence of reported RCTs for powered exoskeletons may be due to a range of challenges, including designing, statistically powering, and conducting such a trial within an appropriate experimental framework. An RCT for the study of exoskeletal-assisted walking in the home and community environments also requires the need to address key factors such as: avoiding selection bias, participant recruitment and retention, training, and safety concerns, particularly in the home environment. These points are described here in the context of a national, multisite Department of Veterans Affairs Cooperative Studies Program-sponsored trial. The rationale and methods for the study design were focused on providing a template for future studies that use powered exoskeletons or other strategies for walking and mobility in people with immobilization due to SCI.

Sudden sensorineural hearing loss associated with vardenafil.

The phosphodiesterase type 5 (PDE-5) inhibitors-sildenafil, vardenafil, and tadalafil-are used primarily in erectile dysfunction, but sildenafil is also indicated for pulmonary hypertension. Common adverse effects of vardenafil include headache, flushing, nasal congestion, dyspepsia, and nausea. Recently, PDE-5 inhibitors have been associated with adverse vision effects, and emerging evidence now indicates that they may also be responsible for hearing changes and hearing loss. We describe a patient who developed unilateral sudden sensorineural hearing loss possibly related to the use of vardenafil for erectile dysfunction. To our knowledge, only one other case of hearing loss related to this drug class has been published. Our patient was a 57-year-old man who came to the emergency department with right-sided mild-to-moderate hearing loss in the 500-3000-Hz range, confirmed by audiogram, that occurred after ingestion of vardenafil. The patient was hospitalized 2 days later for administration of intravenous dexamethasone, followed by oral prednisone. He reported that his hearing had improved on the fourth hospital day and was discharged 3 days later, continuing to taper the prednisone on an outpatient basis. A repeat audiogram after 10 days of corticosteroid therapy confirmed that his hearing in the 500-3000-Hz range was within normal limits. Use of the Naranjo adverse drug reaction probability scale indicated a possible (score of 3) adverse reaction of sudden sensorineural hearing loss associated with vardenafil consumption. We also performed an analysis of hearing loss cases related to PDE-5 inhibitors in the United States Food and Drug Administration's Adverse Event Reporting System database to compare the characteristics of our patient with those of other reported adverse event cases. Based on the temporal relation of the sudden sensorineural hearing loss to this patient's drug consumption, we propose that the vardenafil is a likely cause of the hearing loss. This case provides further evidence that PDE-5 inhibitor consumption should be considered as a possible cause in patients presenting with sudden sensorineural hearing loss.