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The use of a tactical throat mic guitar amp system to improve communication in theatre in the COVID era

During the COVID-19 (SARS-CoV2) pandemic, current guidelines dictate that surgical teams wear appropriate personal protective equipment (PPE) in theatre. Currently this is, at a minimum, an FFP3 respirator, a visor, fluid repellent gown and gloves [1]. Many surgeons, particularly in...

Music and cochlear implants

Introduction The introduction of multichannel cochlear implants (CIs) in the early 1980s provided children and adults with severe and profound hearing losses with greatly improved speech perception skills. In this paper, however, I am going to focus on an area...

Clinical leadership and management: developing world ENT

I have been asked to share some of the initiatives I have been involved with to address ENT-related challenges in Africa and the developing world. Developing countries constitute the majority of the world’s landmass (Figure 1), are home to >50%...

Are ENT patients who research their symptoms online better informed?

All our patients look up their symptoms online before they visit us, don’t they? And patients who do so are better informed than those who don’t, right? Well, that’s not actually the case… The ‘information era’ More information is now...

Extended benefits of cochlear implantation in the elderly

With the challenges presented by an ageing population, Louise Craddock and Charlie Huins describe the benefits of cochlear implants for deaf elderly adults that go beyond improvement of hearing and speech understanding. Introduction People aged over 65 make up 7.4%...

Hearing rehabilitation after vestibular schwannoma surgery

Hearing rehabilitation is a key focus of the management of patients with vestibular schwannoma. But how do we rehabilitate hearing when the cochlear nerve has been damaged by tumour, irradiation, or resective surgery? Mathieu Trudel, Scott Rutherford and Simon Lloyd...

Cochlear implant referral: how can we do better?

Considerable progress has been made over the last few years in improving access to cochlear implantation (CI) in the UK for children and adults with severe to profound deafness. But we are still not treating children early enough, and we...

The ear-brain connection in cochlear implant users: learning to listen again

While the cochlear implant (CI) has been a tremendous success in restoring hearing to deaf individuals, the implantation outcome still varies across CI users [1]. Some demographic factors, such as duration of deafness, and peripheral factors, such as electrode placement,...

Theory of mind and deaf children

Theory of mind relates to a person’s ability to understand the perspectives of others, to be aware that they may differ from one’s own perspectives and the ability to use this knowledge to navigate social situations. Dr Helen Chilton explores...