scholarly journals Can Pregnancy Lead to Changes in Hearing Threshold?

2019 ◽  
pp. 014556131987124
Author(s):  
Devanshu Kwatra ◽  
Sunil Kumar ◽  
Gautam Bir Singh ◽  
Ratna Biswas ◽  
Prabhakar Upadhyay

Purpose: This study explores the changes in hearing thresholds in pregnancy. Materials and Methods: A prospective hospital-based observational study was performed with a total of 69 patients in the age-group of 18 to 40 years. Patients underwent hearing assessment twice during the study period. Conventional pure tone audiometry and impedance audiometry were performed, first during the antepartum period (28-32 weeks of gestational age) and second time during the postpartum period (6 weeks postpartum). Results: Significant difference was seen between the average of air conduction threshold values at speech frequencies when antepartum values were compared with postpartum values. Conclusion: The alterations in hearing sensitivity in pregnant females which improved during the postpartum period can be attributed to pregnancy.

Author(s):  
Devanshu Kwatra ◽  
Sunil Kumar ◽  
Gautam Bir Singh ◽  
Ratna Biswas ◽  
Prabhakar Upadhyay

<p class="abstract"><strong>Background:</strong> This study aims to check if gestational diabetes mellitus leads to changes in hearing.</p><p class="abstract"><strong>Methods:</strong> A prospective hospital based observational study was performed with total 60 subjects in age group of 18-40 years in the Department of Otolaryngology and Head and Neck Surgery and the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Lady Hardinge Medical College, New Delhi between November 2016 to March 2018. Subjects were divided in two groups. The first group included 30 pregnant women with diagnosed gestational diabetes mellitus and the second group had 30 pregnant women not having gestational diabetes mellitus. Pure-tone audiometry and impedance audiometry was performed twice in all the subjects, first during the antepartum period and second time during the postpartum period.  </p><p class="abstract"><strong>Results:</strong> Significant difference was seen between the average of air conduction threshold values at speech frequencies between the two groups during both antepartum and postpartum period.</p><p class="abstract"><strong>Conclusions:</strong> The alterations in hearing sensitivity in air conduction between the two groups can be attributed to gestational diabetes mellitus.</p>


2014 ◽  
Vol 2014 ◽  
pp. 1-4 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nandini Vijaya Singham ◽  
Mimiwati Zahari ◽  
Mohammadreza Peyman ◽  
Narayanan Prepageran ◽  
Visvaraja Subrayan

Background. Our study aimed to investigate an association between ocular pseudoexfoliation (PXF) and sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL) and to compare them with age and sex matched controls without pseudoexfoliation.Method. This was a case-control study of 123 patients which included 68 cases with PXF (at least one eye) and 55 controls without pseudoexfoliation. Pure-tone audiometry (PTA) was done for these patients at sound frequencies taken as important for speech comprehension, that is, 250 Hertz (Hz), 500 Hz, 1000 Hz, and 2000 Hz.Results. There were 41 patients with pseudoexfoliation syndrome (PXE) and 27 with pseudoexfoliative glaucoma (PXEG). The majority of patients with hearing loss (60%;n=51) were PXF patients and the remaining 40%(n=34)were controls. Below average hearing thresholds were significantly higher in the pseudoexfoliation group compared to the control group (P=0.01; odds ratio (OR), 3.00; 95% confidence interval (CI), 1.25–7.19). However, there was no significant difference in the mean hearing threshold levels between the three groups (PXE, PXEG, and controls) in either ear (ANOVA, right ear:P=0.46and left earP=0.36).Conclusion. Our study found an association between PXF and SNHL, confirming that PXF can involve organs in the body other than the eye.


2018 ◽  
Vol 46 (11) ◽  
pp. 4527-4534 ◽  
Author(s):  
Geza Benke ◽  
Christina Dimitriadis ◽  
Berihun M. Zeleke ◽  
Imo Inyang ◽  
Dean McKenzie ◽  
...  

Objective This study was performed to determine whether exposure to personal music players (PMPs) in the immediate morning prior to hearing testing confounds the association between mobile phone use and hearing thresholds of adolescents. Design In this cohort study of cognitive function in year 7 students (median age 13 years, range 11–14), information regarding the weekly use of mobile phones and the use of PMPs was assessed by a questionnaire. Pure-tone audiometry was used to establish hearing thresholds for all participants. Results Among a cohort of 317 adolescents (60.9% females), 130 were unexposed to PMP use while 33 were exposed to PMP use in the morning prior to hearing testing. No statistically significant difference in hearing threshold shifts was found between adolescents who were and were not exposed to PMP use prior to hearing testing. Likewise, the difference in the use of mobile phones according to the PMP use status was not statistically significant. Conclusion Exposure to PMPs prior to hearing testing did not introduce confounding in the present study of mobile phone use and hearing loss among adolescents.


2016 ◽  
Vol 19 (5) ◽  
pp. 839-849
Author(s):  
Alessandra Giannella Samelli ◽  
Carla Gentile Matas ◽  
Camila Maia Rabelo ◽  
Fernanda Cristina Leite Magliaro ◽  
Natália Paião Luiz ◽  
...  

Abstract Introduction: Presbycusis can affect different portions of the auditory system, causing impacts of varying degrees of seriousness on the daily routine of elderly persons. It is essential that the extent of the deficit as well as the degree of handicap is evaluated, so that the hearing of the elderly can be effectively rehabilitated, improving their quality of life. Purpose: To characterize the peripheral and central hearing of elderly individuals and assess their auditory handicaps. Methods: A cross sectional observational study was performed. We evaluated 83 elderly persons (60-85 years; 33 men, 50 women) with normal hearing or sensorineural hearing loss. Individuals were divided into 3 groups according to the 3 to 6kHz hearing thresholds: G1 - mean of 0 to 39 dBHL (80 ears); G2 - mean of 40 to 59 dBHL (48 ears); G3 - mean of 60 to 120dBHL (38 ears). All individuals responded to the Hearing Handicap Inventory for the Elderly (HHIE), and underwent Pure Tone Audiometry, Auditory Brainstem Response (ABR) and Long Latency Response (P300) evaluation. Results: Men had higher auditory thresholds at frequencies from 500 to 12,000Hz (with a statistical difference between 2-8 kHz) and also significantly greater latencies for ABR components. There was no difference between genders for the P300 evaluation. Comparison between groups showed: a statistically significant difference for age; greater ABR wave latencies and interwave intervals; that questionnaire scores worsened as hearing threshold declined; and similar P300 latencies. Conclusions: Elderly people have impairment throughout the auditory pathway (peripheral and central). The P300 was less accurate at identifying the losses that come with age. The HHIE demonstrated negative effects on the social life of elderly people, agreeing with the hearing thresholds found.


2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 42-46
Author(s):  
Shivani Sharma ◽  
Rakesh Thakur ◽  
Sunder S Dogra

Introduction During pregnancy virtually every organ system undergoes anatomical and physiological changes that can alter appreciably the criteria for diagnosis and treatment of diseases. Hormonal fluctuations alter the composition of endolymph and perilymph, and ion transport process. Hence, audiological functions in pregnancy need evaluation. Materials and methods After approval of Institutional Ethics Committee, 100 pregnant women were recruited in the 1st trimester. Tuning tests were done using 128, 256, 512, and 1024 Hz tuning forks. Pure tone audiometry was done and hearing thresholds measured for 125, 250, 500, 1000, 2000, and 4000 Hz. Finally, impedance audiometry was done in all the women in each trimester. Results There was no air—bone gap. There was gradual reduction in hearing acuity at low frequencies (125, 250, 500, and 1000 Hz) from 1st to 3rd trimester of pregnancy. The hearing thresholds got stabilized in the 3rd trimester and returned to normal in postpartum period. For 2000 Hz and higher frequencies, there was no significant difference in relation to pregnant subjects. Number of pregnancies did not affect the audiological functions. Conclusion Low-frequency hearing loss during pregnancy appears to be transient in nature with complete resolution in the postpartum period in most cases. For better understanding of these changes, obstetricians and otolaryngologists can team-up and avoid use of drugs for their symptoms during pregnancy. How to cite this article Verma A, Thakur R, Dogra SS, Sharma S, Singhal A. Audiological Functions in Pregnancy. J South Asian Feder Obst Gynae 2017;9(1):42-46.


2019 ◽  
Vol 2019 ◽  
pp. 1-4 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maryam Bahaloo ◽  
Mohammad Hossein Davari ◽  
Mohammad Sobhan ◽  
Seyyed Jalil Mirmohammadi ◽  
Mohammad Taghi Jalalian ◽  
...  

Introduction. Exposure to high intensity noise produced by MRI is a cause for concern. This study was conducted to determine the temporary and permanent effects of exposure to noise created by performing MRI on the hearing threshold of the subjects using conventional and extended high frequency audiometry. Methods. This semiexperimental study was performed on 35 patients referred to Shahid Rahnemoun Hospital for head and neck MRI due to different clinical conditions. The hearing threshold of patients was measured before, immediately after, and 24 hours after performing 1.5 Tesla MRI using conventional and extended high frequency audiometry. SPSS version 18 was used to compare the mean hearing thresholds before and after MRI using paired T test and repeated measures analysis. Results. Comparison of auditory thresholds in conventional and extended high frequencies before and immediately after MRI showed a significant shift at 4 KHz (P = 0.008 and P = 0.08 for right and left ears), 6 KHz (P = 0.03 and P = 0.01 for right and left ears), and 14 KHz (P =0.03 and P = 0.31 for right and left ears). However, there was no significant difference between audiometric thresholds before and 24 hours after MRI. Conclusion. Noise due to 1.5 Tesla MRI can only cause transient threshold shift.


2018 ◽  
Vol 97 (9) ◽  
pp. E18-E22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lumy Yagueshita ◽  
Lucas Resende Lucinda ◽  
Valderilio Azevedo ◽  
Gislaine Richter Minhoto Wiemes ◽  
Nicole Richter Minhoto Wiemes ◽  
...  

Recent studies have identified sensorineural hearing loss as a possible manifestation of ankylosing spondylitis. We conducted a study of 30 patients with ankylosing spondylitis to characterize their audiologic profile and to correlate their disease activity and functional indices with their hearing thresholds. The study group was made up of 18 men and 12 women, aged 25 to 58 years (mean: 46.5), who were diagnosed with ankylosing spondylitis. We compared their findings with a socially and demographically matched group of 30 healthy controls. All 60 participants underwent an audiologic assessment, consisting of pure-tone audiometry, speech audiometry, and tympanometry. We used validated indices to assess disease activity and functional status, and we compiled information on the time of diagnosis and the types of medications used to treat the ankylosing spondylitis. We found that the average of the mean air-conduction thresholds at 0.5, 1, 2, and 4 kHz in the ankylosing spondylitis group was significantly worse than that of the controls (p = 0.004). A statistically significant difference was observed at frequencies greater than 3 kHz (p < 0.05). A subgroup of case patients who used only a tumor necrosis factor-alpha inhibitor exhibited better hearing thresholds than patients who used other drugs (p = 0.01). Differences in functional and disease activity scores between case patients with and without hearing loss were not statistically significant. We found that patients with ankylosing spondylitis did indeed have a greater prevalence of sensorineural hearing loss but that it was not correlated with either disease activity or functional status.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
A. K. Quintana-López ◽  

The difficulties of applying the audiometry in pediatric populations and its methodological limitations in implanted patients have spurred the development of new alternative auditory evaluation methods. This study aimed to show an objective method to estimate hearing thresholds in pediatric cochlear implanted patients through Electrical Cochlear Response (ECR) and to quantify the hearing performance by using an Auditory Skills Questionnaire (ASQ) and a Calibrated Sounds Test (CST) designed on purpose. Eighteen implanted patients, 1-6 years old underwent standard audiometry, ECR, and ASQ in two evaluation sessions T1 and T2. At T2, in addition, patients underwent CST. For patients ≤3 years old (G1), Pure Tone Averages (PTA and PTAECR)showed a statistically significant difference between them at T1 and T2. At T2 improvements in audiometric and ECR thresholds were observed (p<0.05), regarding T1. Patients older than 3 years (G2) had significantly better ASQ and CST scores. CST detection scores at 40 dBHL for groups G1 and G2, 36% and 70% respectively, showed a better relationship to ECR thresholds. The relationship observed between ECR thresholds and CST detection scores seems to confirm that ECR brings the feasibility of objective hearing threshold estimation and provides a better frequency resolution than audiometry.


2021 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marco Cox ◽  
Bert de Vries

Pure-tone audiometry—the process of estimating a person's hearing threshold from “audible” and “inaudible” responses to tones of varying frequency and intensity—is the basis for diagnosing and quantifying hearing loss. By taking a probabilistic modeling approach, both optimal tone selection (in terms of expected information gain) and hearing threshold estimation can be derived through Bayesian inference methods. The performance of probabilistic model-based audiometry methods is directly linked to the quality of the underlying model. In recent years, Gaussian process (GP) models have been shown to provide good results in this context. We present methods to improve the efficiency of GP-based audiometry procedures by improving the underlying model. Instead of a single GP, we propose to use a GP mixture model that can be conditioned on side-information about the subject. The underlying idea is that one can typically distinguish between different types of hearing thresholds, enabling a mixture model to better capture the statistical properties of hearing thresholds among a population. Instead of modeling all hearing thresholds by a single GP, a mixture model allows specific types of hearing thresholds to be modeled by independent GP models. Moreover, the mixing coefficients can be conditioned on side-information such as age and gender, capturing the correlations between age, gender, and hearing threshold. We show how a GP mixture model can be optimized for a specific target population by learning the parameters from a data set containing annotated audiograms. We also derive an optimal tone selection method based on greedy information gain maximization, as well as hearing threshold estimation through Bayesian inference. The proposed models are fitted to a data set containing roughly 176 thousand annotated audiograms collected in the Nordic countries. We compare the predictive accuracies of optimized mixture models of varying sizes with that of an optimized single-GP model. The usefulness of the optimized models is tested in audiometry simulations. Simulation results indicate that an optimized GP mixture model can significantly outperform an optimized single-GP model in terms of predictive accuracy, and leads to significant increases the efficiency of the resulting Bayesian audiometry procedure.


2017 ◽  
Vol 164 (1) ◽  
pp. 46-51 ◽  
Author(s):  
Liyona Kampel-Furman ◽  
Z Joachims ◽  
H Bar-Cohen ◽  
A Grossman ◽  
Y Frenkel-Nir ◽  
...  

BackgroundMilitary aviators are potentially at risk for developing noise-induced hearing loss. Whether ambient aircraft noise exposure causes hearing deficit beyond the changes attributed to natural ageing is debated. The aim of this research was to assess changes in hearing thresholds of Israeli Air Force (IAF) pilots over 20 years of military service and identify potential risk factors for hearing loss.MethodsA retrospective cohort analysis was conducted of pure-tone air conduction audiograms of pilots, from their recruitment at 18 years of age until the last documented medical check-up. Mean hearing thresholds were analysed in relation to age, total flight hours and aircraft platform. Comparisons were made to the hearing thresholds of air traffic controllers (ATCs) who were not exposed to the noise generated by aircraft while on duty.ResultsOne hundred and sixty-three pilots were included, with flying platforms ranging from fighter jets (n=54), combat helicopters (n=27), transport helicopters (n=52) and transport aircraft (n=30). These were compared with the results from 17 ATCs. A marked notch in the frequency range of 4–6 kHz was demonstrated in the mean audiograms of all platforms pilots, progressing with ageing. Hearing threshold shifts in relation to measurements at recruitment were first noted at the age of 30 years, particularly at 4 kHz (mean shift of 2.97 dB, p=0.001). There was no statistical association between flying variables and hearing thresholds adjusted for age by logistic regression analysis.ConclusionsThe audiometric profile of IAF pilots has a pattern compatible with noise exposure, as reflected by characteristic noise notch. However, no flight variable was associated with deterioration of hearing thresholds, and no significant difference from non-flying controls (ATCs) was seen.


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