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Can we prevent chronic rhinosinusitis?

The old adage ‘prevention is better than cure’ is considered by Professor Hopkins in respect to chronic rhinosinusitis, a condition affecting around 10% of the adult population and associated with huge impact on quality of life and economic cost. A...

Robotic surgery for squamous cell cancer: the new frontiers

Although the da Vinci platform was FDA approved for early-stage oropharyngeal cancers, the indications have expanded. In this article, John Hardman explains how surgeons, with greater understanding of the strengths and limitations of robotic surgery, have systematically set out to...

Questionnaires to measure tinnitus severity

The handicap associated with tinnitus can arise from any combination of stress, anxiety, depression, emotional distress, insomnia, difficulties concentrating, or impairments in quality of life or everyday functioning. Measuring such handicap and determining clinical need is therefore far from trivial....

Mindfulness based approaches to tinnitus management: meditations on a new approach

Psychological approaches to tinnitus There is now widespread agreement that an individual’s interpretation of tinnitus can determine how distressing they find it. If tinnitus is regarded as non-threatening then habituation normally follows. If, however, tinnitus is interpreted as threatening, habituation...

Screening for hearing aid fittings – an approach for primary care

Introduction The communication difficulties related to hearing loss can lead to ‘depression, social withdrawal and problems with employment and access to information sources’ [1]. Furthermore, unmanaged hearing loss is associated with dementia, a poorer quality of life, depression, anxiety and...

Screening: evaluating the outcomes of early intervention

Newborn hearing screening is now the accepted standard of care in several countries, and is becoming increasingly more established worldwide. White [1] reported eight countries screening over 90% of newborns, ten screening between 25-89% of births and a further 54...

Utilisation of cortical auditory evoked potentials in the paediatric population

Introduction Early identification of hearing loss in infants followed by prompt intervention is well established as the key to maximising the development of speech, language and psychosocial skills. Many countries have already adopted early hearing detection and intervention (EDHI) programs,...

Hearing in middle-age: hearing impairment, tinnitus and hearing aid use in UK adults

Hearing loss has a well-documented adverse impact on emotional, social and physical well-being. In this article, Dr Piers Dawes from the University of Manchester gives an insight into his team’s recent work analysing the very large UK Biobank data set,...

Combined use of a hearing aid and a cochlear implant: a case study

When multi-channel cochlear implants (CIs) were first introduced in the 1980s, their use was restricted to people who derived no benefit from conventional amplification. Over the past three decades, however, the criteria for CIs has been relaxed considerably, and it...

Knowledge is power: the power of mobile technologies to enhance hearing-related knowledge

In recent years, the widespread use of smartphones has made it increasingly possible to improve knowledge, understanding and delivery of hearing healthcare. Melanie Ferguson tells us about the advances in mobile-health applications. Think back to five years ago - what...

Measuring client-centred outcomes in audiology: towards a parsimonious solution

From an international driver to the client-centred care model; in this article Anthony Hogan explores outcome measures for individual goal setting and measuring those outcomes. Introduction When people present for hearing help, they are typically looking for solutions to the...

Family-centred early intervention: supporting a call to action

Family-centred care for young children is a commonly used but frequently under-appreciated approach in audiology. Prof Moodie discusses how we can take positive action to improve our approach to families in ways that make a meaningful difference in their lives....