Efficacy of balance exercises intervention on postural control-related impairment in children with sensorineural hearing loss.

BACKGROUND: Sensorineural hearing loss is the most common type of permanent hearing impairment and results in postural control and motor deficits in children that may affect or delay all developmental indicators. OBJECTIVE: The purpose of the study was to investigate the efficacy of balance exercises intervention on postural control-related impairment in children with sensorineural hearing loss. METHODS: Forty students of both genders, ages ranging from 10 to 16 years, diagnosed with severe to profound sensorineural hearing loss, were selected from the Public School for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing in El-Minia district, Minia governorate, Egypt. They divided randomly into two groups, 20 (study group), received balance exercises in addition to their ordinary daily living activities. Meanwhile, the control group of 20 children practiced only the ordinary daily living activities. The outcome was assessed pre-treatment and post-treatment by Humac Balance System and Bruininks-Oseretsky Test (BOT-2) subtest (5) for balance. RESULTS: Regarding the Humac balance system and subtest (5) of BOT-2, there was a statistically significant difference between pre-treatment data and post-treatment data of the study group with a p value equal to 0.036 or less. However, no statistically significant difference was observed in the control group with a p value equal to 0.096 or more. Finally, there was a statistically significant difference between the groups with respect to the post-treatment data, where the p value was 0.014 or less. CONCLUSION: Postural control of children with sensorineural hearing loss has been improved by balance exercises.

Sensorineural hearing loss imprint on postural control: A pediatric and adolescent innovative study.

BACKGROUND: Sensorineural hearing loss is the most common type of permanent hearing impairment and results in postural control and motor deficits in children that may affect or delay all developmental indicators. OBJECTIVE: The purpose of the study was to objectively investigate the consequences of sensorineural hearing loss concerning postural control in pediatrics. METHODS: Forty students of both genders, ages ranging from 10 to 16 years, diagnosed with severe to profound sensorineural hearing loss, were selected from the Public School for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing in El-Minia district, Egypt. The outcome was assessed by HUMAC Balance System and Bruininks-Oseretsky Test (BOT-2) subtest (5) for balance. RESULTS: Regarding HUMAC Balance System and subtest (5) of BOT-2, there was a statistically significant difference between the scores of study subgroups and the counterpart normal subgroups of the same age and gender where p-value equal 0.0035 or less. CONCLUSION: The findings of this study suggest that children with sensorineural hearing loss have a defect in their postural control skills compared to normal children of the same gender and age groups according to HUMAC Balance System and Bruininks-Oseretsky scale.

The Short versus Long Antibiotic Course for Pleural Infection Management (SLIM) randomised controlled open-label trial.

Introduction: Based on expert opinion, the length of antibiotic treatment for pleural infection in adults is typically recommended to be a minimum of 4 weeks. This clinical trial aimed to assess whether shorter antibiotic courses lead to more treatment failures than standard longer courses. Methods: In an open-label randomised controlled trial, adult patients with pleural infection who were medically treated and stabilised within 14 days of admission were randomised to either a short antibiotic course (total course 14-21 days) or a long antibiotic course (total course 28-42 days). Patients were excluded if their baseline RAPID score was >4 (high-risk category). The primary outcome was the incidence of treatment failure by 6 weeks post-admission. Secondary outcomes were total length of antibiotic treatment, proportion of patients who resumed normal activity levels within 6 weeks post-admission, time from discharge to resuming normal activity levels and incidence of antibiotic-related adverse reactions. Results: Between September 2020 and October 2021, 50 patients (mean±sd age 46±13.7 years; 35 (70%) males) were recruited to the trial and randomly assigned to the short course group (n=25) or the long course group (n=25), with outcome data available for 24 patients in each study group. Treatment failure occurred in four (16.7%) patients in the short course group and three (12.5%) patients in the long course group. In the intention-to-treat analysis the OR for treatment failure in the long course group was 0.714 (95% CI 0.142-3.600; p=0.683). The median (interquartile range) duration of antibiotic treatment in the short course group was 20.5 (18-22.5) days compared with 34.5 (32-38) days in the long course group (p<0.001). There were no statistically significant differences in the other outcomes. Conclusions: In medically treated adult patients with pleural infection a long course of antimicrobial therapy did not lead to fewer treatment failures compared with a shorter course. These findings need to be confirmed in a larger multicentre trial.