Prediction of Hearing Levels from Acoustic Reflex Thresholds in Persons with High-Frequency Hearing Losses

1979 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 697-707 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shlomo Silman ◽  
Stanley A. Gelfand

This study examined the precision of the bivariate method in subjects with high-frequency sensorineural hearing loss. The current bivariate data effectively separated normal hearing subjects from those with pure tone averages of ≥32 dB HL, in a manner consistent with the results of Popelka and Trumpf (1976) and Margolis and Fox (1977b). However, for persons with high-frequency losses the prediction of hearing levels from acoustic reflex thresholds (ARTs) appears to be complicated. Moderate hearing losses involving 500, 1000 and 2000 Hz (“speech frequencies”) as well as higher frequencies were identified on the basis of elevated average ARTs for 500, 1000 and 2000 Hz. Normal ears (pure tone averages of ≤30 dB HL) were isolated from others on the basis of position on the bivariate graph. Those with (1) normal hearing in the “speech frequencies” and a high-frequency loss and (2) a mild loss in the “speech frequencies” and a high-frequency loss, could be separated from those with normal hearing by location on the bivariate graph, and from those with moderate (or worse) losses on the basis of average ART for tones. Consideration of these findings is useful in the evaluation of patients at risk for high-frequency loss, such as patients with noise exposure, and is particularly useful in cases of suspected functional impairment within this population. A modification of the bivariate method is suggested which extends its application to patient populations with a large incidence of high frequency sensorineural hearing loss.

Author(s):  
Sheila Uliel

The suprathreshold acoustic reflex responses of forty two ears affected by sensorineural hearing loss of cochlear origin and fifty-eight ears demonstrating normal hearing, were recorded by means of an electro-acoustic impedance meter and attached X-Y recorder. The recordings were done in ascending and descending fashion,  at successively increasing and decreasing 5dB intensity levels from 90-120-90 dB HL respectively, for the individual pure-tone frequencies of 500, 1 000, 2 000 and 4 000 Hz. The contralateral mode of measurement was employed. Analysis of  these recordings indicated that the acoustic reflex  responses could be differentiated into five  characteristic patterns of  growth, which could be depicted upon a continuum of peaked, peaked-rounded, rounded, rounded-flat,  and flat  shapes. The peaked and peaked-rounded patterns were found  to predominate at all four pure-tone frequencies  in the normal ears, while the rounded-fiat  and flat  patterns were found  to predominate only at the higher pure-tone frequencies of 2 000 and 4 000 Hz in the ears affected  by sensorineural hearing loss. This latter relationship was also able to be applied to two disorders of  the loudness functio— loudness recruitment and hyperacusis. It was concluded that the flattened  acoustic reflex  patterns at the higher pure-tone frequencies  constituted a potential diagnostic cue related to the differential  diagnosis of sensorineural hearing loss, and to disorders of  the loudness function.


2018 ◽  
Vol 144 (3) ◽  
pp. 1834-1834
Author(s):  
M. P. Feeney ◽  
Kim Schairer ◽  
Douglas H. Keefe ◽  
Denis Fitzpatrick ◽  
Daniel Putterman ◽  
...  

1998 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
pp. 549-563 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sid P. Bacon ◽  
Jane M. Opie ◽  
Danielle Y. Montoya

Speech recognition was measured in three groups of listeners: those with sensorineural hearing loss of (presumably) cochlear origin (HL), those with normal hearing (NH), and those with normal hearing who listened in the presence of a spectrally shaped noise that elevated their pure-tone thresholds to match those of individual listeners in the HL group (NM). Performance was measured in four backgrounds that differed only in their temporal envelope: steady-state (SS) speech-shaped noise, speech-shaped noise modulated by the envelope of multi-talker babble (MT), speech-shaped noise modulated by the envelope of single-talker speech (ST), and speech-shaped noise modulated by a 10-Hz square wave (SQ). Threshold signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs) were typically best in the ST and especially the SQ conditions, indicating a masking release in those modulated backgrounds. SNRs in the SS and MT conditions were essentially identical to one another. The masking release was largest in the listeners in the NH group, and it tended to decrease as hearing loss increased. In 5 of the 11 listeners in the HL group, the masking release was nearly identical to that obtained in the NM group matched to those listeners; in the other 6 listeners, the release was smaller than that in the NM group. The reduced masking release was simulated best in those HL listeners for whom the masking release was relatively large. These results suggest that reduced masking release for speech in listeners with sensorineural hearing loss can only sometimes be accounted for entirely by reduced audibility.


1984 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 206-211 ◽  
Author(s):  
Larry E. Humes ◽  
Anne Marie Tharpe ◽  
Gene W. Bratt

Two experiments were performed for this study. The purpose of both experiments was to examine the validity of pure-tone hearing thresholds obtained near the rising portion of a sensorineural hearing loss. Recent work by other investigators has suggested that thresholds obtained near the rising portion of the audiogram may not correspond to the severity of damage at the cochlear place associated with the test frequency. In the first experiment this issue was addressed in 11 subjects having low frequency sensorineural hearing loss, whereas 12 subjects (19 ears) having notch-shaped high-frequency sensorineural hearing losses were examined in the second experiment. The results indicated that thresholds obtained from the rising portion of the audiometric configuration were, in most instances, determined by sensitivity at the test frequency. An exception to this generalization involved low-frequency sensorineural hearing loss with a slope for the rising portion of the audiogram exceeding -25 dB/octave. In these cases the severity of the loss may be underestimated for test frequencies immediately adjacent to the rising portion of the audiogram.


Scientifica ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 2016 ◽  
pp. 1-7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mar Lasso de la Vega ◽  
Ithzel Maria Villarreal ◽  
Julio Lopez-Moya ◽  
Jose Ramon Garcia-Berrocal

Objective. The aim of this study is to analyze the high-frequency hearing levels in patients with rheumatoid arthritis and to determine the relationship between hearing loss, disease duration, and immunological parameters.Materials and Methods.A descriptive cross-sectional study including fifty-three patients with rheumatoid arthritis was performed. The control group consisted of 71 age- and sex-matched patients from the study population (consecutively recruited in Madrid “Area 9,” from January 2010 to February 2011). Both a pure tone audiometry and an extended-high-frequency audiometry were performed.Results. Extended-high-frequency audiometry diagnosed sensorineural hearing loss in 69.8% of the patients which exceeded the results obtained with pure tone audiometry (43% of the patients). This study found significant correlations in patients with sensorineural hearing loss related to age, sex, and serum anti-cardiolipin (aCL) antibody levels.Conclusion.Sensorineural hearing loss must be considered within the clinical context of rheumatoid arthritis. Our results demonstrated that an extended-high-frequency audiometry is a useful audiological test that must be performed within the diagnostic and follow-up testing of patients with rheumatoid arthritis, providing further insight into a disease-modifying treatment or a hearing loss preventive treatment.


1991 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 403-414 ◽  
Author(s):  
John H. Macrae

Humes and Jesteadt have proposed that the Modified Power Law (MPL) provides a means of predicting permanent threshold shift (PTS) due to noise exposure in subjects with preexisting sensorineural hearing loss. Data concerning PTS attributed to overamplification by hearing aids in 8 children with severe sensorineural hearing loss were used to evaluate the MPL hypothesis. The excessive amplification was partly due to use by the children of very high volume-control settings instead of mid-range volume-control settings. The PTS tended to be flat across frequency. Its course in time was a miniature version of the time course of PTS that would be induced by a similar noise exposure in a person with normal hearing. It began to occur soon after the start of hearing aid use and its rate of development was slower than that which would occur in a person with normal hearing. The growth of PTS could be predicted from the estimated real ear output levels of the children’s hearing aids by means of the MPL combined with the logarithmic equation proposed by Kraak for predicting the effect of noise exposure on hearing.


1970 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 426-437 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ellen S. Martin ◽  
J. M. Pickett

Pure-tone auditory thresholds were obtained in quiet and in three levels of masking noise for one normal-hearing group and five groups of subjects with different degrees of sensorineural loss. The masker was a low-pass noise, cut off at 250 Hz. It was presented at overall levels of 77, 97, and 107 dB SPL. Pure-tone thresholds were obtained at test frequencies within and above the masking band. A measure of noise rejection slope was used to describe spread of masking. Degree of loss, configuration of loss, and level of masking noise appear to have marked influences on upward spread of masking patterns in sensorineural subjects.


2005 ◽  
Vol 16 (06) ◽  
pp. 367-382 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard H. Wilson ◽  
Deborah G. Weakley

The purpose of this study was to determine if performances on a 500 Hz MLD task and a word-recognition task in multitalker babble covaried or varied independently for listeners with normal hearing and for listeners with hearing loss. Young listeners with normal hearing (n = 25) and older listeners (25 per decade from 40–80 years, n = 125) with sensorineural hearing loss were studied. Thresholds at 500 and 1000 Hz were ≤30 dB HL and ≤40 dB HL, respectively, with thresholds above 1000 Hz <100 dB HL. There was no systematic relationship between the 500 Hz MLD and word-recognition performance in multitalker babble. Higher SoNo and SπNo; thresholds were observed for the older listeners, but the MLDs were the same for all groups. Word recognition in babble in terms of signal-to-babble ratio was on average 6.5 (40- to 49-year-old group) to 10.8 dB (80- to 89-year-old group) poorer for the older listeners with hearing loss. Neither pure-tone thresholds nor word-recognition abilities in quiet accurately predicted word-recognition performance in multitalker babble.


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