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Prevalence of cochlear dead regions in different clinical populations

University of British Columbia

Prevalence of cochlear dead regions was investigated in sixty-two adults with sensorineural hearing loss. The aims of this study were to 1) assess the prevalence of cochlear dead regions in the population of people with sensorineural hearing loss; 2) assess the prevalence of cochlear dead regions in three sub-populations of people with sensorineural hearing loss: Group 1 was subjects with noise-induced hearing loss (n=15), Group 2 was subjects with otologic diseases associated with sensorineural hearing loss (n=8), and Group 3 was subjects who self-refer to a hearing aid clinic (n=39); 3) relate the presence or absence of cochlear dead regions to absolute threshold, slope of the audiogram, and pure tone average. The threshold-equalizing noise (TEN) test (HL) was used to assess the presence or absence of dead regions. The results suggest: 1) Prevalence of cochlear dead regions was 14.5% among subjects. Prevalence by ear was 10.7%. 2) Classifying by subject, the prevalence in the noise-induced hearing loss group was 13%. Prevalence in the otologic-disease group was 0%. Prevalence in the self-refer group was 18%. These results need to be interpreted with caution due to the small sample size and differences in group sizes. 3) Absolute thresholds at 4 kHz tended to be higher in the subjects with dead regions. Presence or absence of dead regions was not related to slope of the audiogram or pure tone average.

Thesis/Dissertation

application/pdf

2009-08-04

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/11583

Audiology and Speech Sciences

University of British Columbia

UBCV

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/