Case History
The 26-year-old mother was healthy throughout the term of the pregnancy and went into labor at 40-weeks' gestation. The pregnancy was complicated just prior to delivery with a possible abruption. There was significant bradycardia with the heart rate of the patient down to 40 beats per minute prior to delivery. This required a stat cesarean section.
Topic(s): Hearing Loss, High Frequency, Balance/Vestibular, Patient care
Dizziness is a common complaint, with approximately 35 percent of adults reporting dizziness, with the prevalence increasing dramatically with age (Agrawal, 2009). As the profession of audiology has evolved, so has our understanding of the various disorders that cause imbalance and dizziness. This article will walk you through the case of Sunny Susan (patient’s name changed to protect identity), a woman who I first saw as a balance patient after she had spent over 22 years struggling with recurrent dizziness and progressive hearing loss.
Topic(s): Dizziness, Balance/Vestibular, Meniere’s Disease (MD), conductive-mixed hearing loss, Hearing Loss, Tinnitus, Patient care
A growing body of research confirms a connection between hearing loss and a variety of chronic diseases and disorders (for reviews see Abrams, 2017; Besser et al, 2018). The medical term “comorbidities” is appearing increasingly in the audiological literature and also in clinical conversations about patient diagnosis and management. Audiologists have long known that specific often acute disease processes are related directly to different types of hearing loss.
Topic(s): Accreditation Commission for Audiology Education (ACAE), comorbidity, Hearing Loss
Hearing-care professionals (HCPs) and hearing aid wearers report the chief complaint secondary to hearing loss and to wearing traditional hearing aids, is the inability to understand speech-in-noise (SIN; see Beck et al, 2019). Beck et al (2018) reported that, in addition to the 37 million Americans with audiometric hearing loss, 26 million have hearing difficulty and/or difficulty understanding SIN, despite clinically normal thresholds. As such, helping people hear (i.e., to perceive sound) and helping people listen (i.e., to comprehend, or apply meaning to sound) remains paramount.
Topic(s): speech-in-noise, Hearing, Hearing Loss, Sensorineural Hearing Loss, Noise Reduction, Audiometric Test
"So what do you do?" I paused and thought of several different responses that were possible. I responded with a smile and three simple words, "I change lives."
Over the course of our careers, we are asked many times why we do what we do—sometimes we even ask ourselves that question. While there is a myriad of answers, some individuals have a personal experience with audiology that brought them to this profession. More and more students are entering the profession with hearing loss, and are excited for what the future has in store.
Topic(s): Audiologist, Hearing Loss, SAA - Student Academy of Audiology
