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Swallowing their words: translating and adapting swallowing questionnaires to other languages

Dysphagia (swallowing difficulties) is increasingly relevant given the ageing population. Yet measuring or assessing dysphagia is challenging and often costly when exploring instrumental examination. The aim of this study was to translate and validate a patient-reported swallow questionnaire; the Sydney...

How safe is ESS really?

Endoscopic sinus surgery (ESS) is a very frequently performed operation, both in America and worldwide. This ambitious project looked at the health data of more than 105 million patients across 60 1US HCOS. The cohort of 116,669 patients who underwent...

Facial paralysis revisited

Facial paralysis grading is a confusing issue. Lots of classifications have been proposed but all are subjective. The authors attempted to automate the Sunnybrook Facial Grading System (SFGS) by training a convoluted neural network (CNN) deep learning system. They used...

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...

Let’s talk brains: review of care pathways for communication management post brain tumour

One in five people with a brain tumour have speech and language difficulties such as aphasia – a language impairment that can result in difficulties using and understanding words and sentences and participating in conversations. This paper describes a scoping...

Temporal bone fractures in children – are we doing enough?

This is a retrospective study which assessed clinical presentation and prognosis in 91 children under the age of 18 who developed temporal bone fractures from trauma, the commonest of which was falls from heights followed by motor vehicle accident. The...

Cochlear implant – should we follow the curve?

Slimmer electrodes were developed by cochlear implant companies under the premise of hearing preservation (HP). Electrode types included stylet-curved electrodes sheath-curved electrodes, and straight-flexible electrodes. Previous reviews did not compare sheath and straight electrodes. A systematic review and meta-analysis were...

WRMD in otolaryngology

Work-related musculoskeletal disorders (WRMD) are now front and centre in the practice of otolaryngology head and neck surgery, with many surgeons suffering pain, disability and shortened career spans. Common WRMDs include degenerative lumbar spine disease, rotator cuff pathology, degenerative cervical...

Around the world: cultural adaptation of speech and language therapy interventions

Communication Partner Training (CPT) is a speech and language therapy approach whereby a person with an acquired communication disorder (such as a stroke, brain injury or dementia) and a close other are supported to have better conversations. Several intervention programmes...