Search

Optical cochlear implants: recent progress toward light-based hearing restoration

Optical cochlear implants combine optogenetics and light-based hardware to overcome limits of electrical CIs, promising sharper frequency resolution and more natural hearing. Cochlear implants (CIs) are among the most successful neuroprosthetic devices in modern medicine, restoring speech perception to hundreds...

How sight shapes sound: cross-modal plasticity and cochlear implantation

Visual cues support auditory recovery after cochlear implantation, with evidence showing cross-modal plasticity enhances speech perception and rehabilitation outcomes. Traditionally, clinical guidance around cochlear implantation has been shaped by a key concern: that reliance on visual communication, particularly speechreading, might...

GIRFT: improving ENT care through standardised clinical pathways

Clinical pathways can help to ensure consistency of approach and efficient use of resources. We hear about new developments in the UK. Variation in ENT care In today’s data-driven healthcare landscape, significant variation persists in the provision of ENT services...

Hypoglossal nerve stimulation for OSA: current experience with unilateral versus bilateral systems

Hypoglossal nerve stimulation (HNS) has emerged as an established treatment option for selected patients with obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA) who are intolerant to continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP). Over the past decade, technological developments have expanded the field from unilateral...

ENTelligence: driving safe and transparent AI innovation in ENT

AI is seemingly going to be ubiquitous. How do we as ENT clinicians help to shape its direction? Artificial Intelligence (AI) is reshaping modern medicine. Algorithmic analysis is now influencing decisions once made solely by clinicians. Yet, in surgical specialties...

Advances in speech testing for improved diagnosis and rehabilitation

Measuring an individual’s ability to hear speech in quiet or in the presence of background noise has long been a key component of a comprehensive audiological assessment. Moving beyond the pure-tone audiogram allows us to gain insights that extend far...

OBITUARY: Professor Heinz Stammberger (1946-2018)

We, at ENT & Audiology News, have just learned of the death of Professor Heinz Stammberger on 9 December. Within the global ENT community, there can be few people whose names are as well-known as his, and his loss will...

Old age is hard to swallow

This article takes us through the diagnosis and management of swallowing problems common in older age. As our global population continues to grow and live longer, dysphagia will continue to be a global problem which needs to be recognised, understood...

Long-term outcomes of children and young people with cochlear implants

Introduction Profound childhood hearing loss has a huge impact on early communication skills, the acquisition of spoken language, and hence on educational attainments and employment prospects. Over the centuries, educators of the deaf attempted to overcome the challenge by using...

The ear-brain connection: the role of cognition in neural speech processing

Audiologists and other hearing healthcare professionals have become increasingly interested in the importance of cognitive function in the assessment and management of hearing loss, especially in light of evidence suggesting a link between hearing loss and cognitive decline in older...