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.

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. 

The Academy Research Conference (ARC) 2018 provided an overview of progress in the field of genetics and hearing loss from both research and clinical perspectives. As chair of ARC 2018, I was joined by several knowledgeable individuals on the organizing committee, including Dr. Zarin Mehta from A.T. Sill University, Dr. Wendy Hanks from Pacific University, and Dr. Jonathan Whitton from Decibel Therapeutics. My thanks to them for their expert guidance.

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.