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Swallowing and breathing: speech and language therapy

Swallowing difficulties are a common comorbidity in just over a quarter of people living with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Given the associated risks of aspiration and exacerbation of COPD symptoms, speech and language therapists (SLTs) can offer valuable guidance...

Association of diabetes mellitus type 2 with age-related changes in the larynx

Diabetes affects the body with changes in the neurological, muscular and vascular systems. It is therefore conceivable that the larynx, which is a musculoskeletal organ, can be adversely affected by type 2 diabetes mellitus. To explore this possibility, 174 Caucasian...

Are we all in the matrix?

In the entirety of training and in further practice, we are instilled with the premise of patient-centred care and individualised management plans based on informed consent. The question in the new age of telehealth/e-health is how to mimic that personalisation...

Vestibular function preservation after minimally invasive paediatric cochlear implantation

This retrospective study analysed results in 24 paediatric patients with low-frequency residual hearing before and after minimally invasive cochlear implantation. The authors define minimally invasive cochlear implantation as a round window insertion of flexible Nucleus CI422, Nucleus CI522, MedEl Flex...

How common is oropharyngeal dysphagia amongst the adult population?

It is well known that oropharyngeal dysphagia (OD) is a symptom arising from many different aetiologies or disease conditions and that it is a significant morbidity affecting people’s quality of life. Establishing the prevalence of OD is complicated by the...

Idiopathic sudden sensorineural hearing loss and vertigo

This prospective longitudinal study evaluated vestibular function inpatients with idiopathic sudden sensorineural hearing loss (ISSHL) using caloric and video head impulse tests. All patients were admitted for treatment of their ISSHL and divided into two cohorts depending on presence or...

Cascading communication skills to help children with autism

Inadequate workforce resource is an ongoing difficulty across the health professions. This study proposes a train the trainer model, with the ultimate goal of improving the communication skills of children with autism. The study describes an intervention called naturalistic developmental...

Hi There Solutions

The COVID-19 pandemic has introduced a multitude of lifestyle challenges, and communication has been no exception to this. Not only have plexiglass barriers and masks impeded the way we verbally interact, but the transition to more frequent virtual communication has...

Challenging steps of virtual cortical mastoidectomy

This prospective study investigated which steps of cortical mastoidectomy were challenging for 10 medical students and 10 intermediate surgeons (surgical trainees) compared to 10 experienced expert surgeons. Each participant performed cortical mastoidectomy on eight different virtual temporal bone models. The...

Patient-led wax and aural foreign body removal technology – is it safe?

As ENT and audiology professionals, wax impaction and aural foreign bodies are common presentations to our clinic that can cause significant distress to patients and can preclude diagnostic testing such as pure tone audiograms and tympanometry. We often advise patients...