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Selecting and optimising hearing aids for tinnitus benefit: a rough guide

Hearing aids have a relatively long history as tinnitus treatment tools. Saltzman and Ersner reported success in suppressing tinnitus with simple hearing aids in a number of cases as early as 1947 [1]. In an early comprehensive approach to tinnitus...

Rehabilitation of single-sided deafness with cochlear implants

The relatively recent emergence of cochlear implantation as a potential means of restoring hearing to a deafened ear, in the presence of normal hearing in the other ear, has proved an exciting and yet surprising development. James Tysome explores the...

A shifting landscape of otitis media

In light of pneumococcal vaccination programmes, is otitis media evolving to have a different natural history? Acute otitis media (AOM) is a major public health problem in children worldwide, as it is the leading bacterial infection and first cause of...

A soprano’s demise: a cautionary tale for the thyroid surgeon

Prior to the mid-19th century, thyroid surgery was considered excessively dangerous. The emergence of anaesthetic, antisepsis and improved instrumentation, however, increased its feasibility and frequency in Europe. The unhurried, judiciously antiseptic and haemostatic approach, advocated by Kocher, was popularised and...

Andrew Foster and deaf education

This article examines the career of deaf African American, Andrew Foster, and his contribution to deaf education in Sub-Saharan Africa. The history of medicine has often been guilty of attributing great revolutions to a single person (usually a white man)...

Machine learning to support audiology

Jessica Monaghan and David Allen discuss how machine learning, using a wealth of data provided by hearing devices, can be used to streamline their functionality and fitting. They report on how it has been used to support clinicians to maximise...

Training in the use of medical devices
– how should it be done?

Adequate training in novel medical devices is imperative, not only to ensure patient safety, but also to give clinicians the confidence to use the device in question. In this article, Andrea Gillies explains the philosophy of one of the equipment...

Cochlear implantation in the developing world: perspectives from the Indian subcontinent

Cochlear implants are an expensive technology, yet profound hearing loss is far from a developed-world phenomenon. On the contrary, incidences of both congenital and acquired hearing losses are high in the developing world. This article explains how an initiative in...