Journal Reviews
Improving music perception in cochlear implant users
Can you imagine a world without music? In the words of Hans Christian Anderson, a prolific 19th-century Danish author, “Where words fail, music speaks.” This quote highlights music’s importance as a language of emotions that transcends linguistic barriers. This case...
Bell’s palsy outcomes
Bell’s palsy is a common, idiopathic, unilateral facial paresis or paralysis of sudden onset. This retrospective study reviewed the records of 193 patients diagnosed with Bell’s palsy. The patient’s clinical data, House-Brackman (h-B) grade, and data from five electrophysiological tests...
Posterior TM perforations carry greater hearing loss: practical pointers for clinic
This single-centre prospective study of 100 adults with central pars tensa perforations examined how perforation size and quadrant relate to hearing loss. Using video-otoscopy to estimate perforation area and pure tone audiometry for thresholds, the authors found hearing loss in...
Starry eyed?
Attentive listening and active listening skills suggest that eye movement is an important factor in subject engagement. Indeed, when asked, AI suggests gaze is held for 70% of the time when listening. Although the route of this percentage is unclear,...
Eustachian tube dilatation can be done as an office procedure
Symptoms of eustachian tube dysfunction can often prove stressful and the treatment can be quite challenging in terms of sustained improvement. In this study, 31 patients underwent eustachian tube dilatation under local anaesthesia. The procedure is based on the concept...
Cochlear implant, Ménière’s no more
Implanting Ménière’s disease (MD) patients with cochlear implant (CI) may improve their speech recognition, tinnitus and quality of life with comparable hearing benefits to those seen in controls without MD, even if labyrinthectomy has also been performed. Authors investigated the...
Elevated intracranial pressure versus migraines versus sinusitis?
This narrative review discusses the challenges faced by an otolaryngologist to differentiate elevated intracranial pressure (eICP), migraines and chronic rhinosinusitis (CRS). Facial pain, pressure, aural fullness, muffled hearing and tinnitus are often common symptoms described by patients with all three...
Management of traumatic facial palsy
Most traumatic facial palsies resolve with conservative management. Early facial nerve decompression is indicated in acute complete traumatic facial palsies. House–Brackmann (HB) classification is used universally to classify the severity of the facial nerve injury, but few centres have availability...
Keep on moving
This study compared the differences in localisation of sound between those with symmetrical hearing within normal limits (NH) and those with single-sided deafness (SSD). Unsurprisingly, those with SSD took longer to localise sounds and had a higher error rate. Although...
A comparison between artificial and cadaveric temporal bones in terms of providing realistic setting and structural details
Increasing difficulties, costs and risks of infection have led to the use of artificial temporal bones for training in mastoid and middle ear surgery. Whether these provide a realistic learning environment (face value) and offer structural details to learn from...
The cocktail party conundrum
I feel, with slight sadness and disappointment, that a good cocktail party, dresses, punch bowls and all is not currently in its heyday and, therefore, opportunity of attending is slim. However, from what I remember, they tend to be a...
Expectations and practice
Reading this paper is reassuring. It does not appear to be groundbreaking in its results but research can be as useful, if not more so, when it consolidates knowledge and helps unify the research base. This paper focuses on those...
