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Academic BACO 2015

Putting together the academic programme for BACO is a monumental task. Academic Chairman Shakeel Saeed and Peter Andrews, the Academic Secretary of the conference, tell us how to make it a success. Conference season is nearly upon us, and Liverpool...

Communicating with patients in 
‘Plain English’

Physicians have long been accused of using unnecessarily complicated language and impenetrable jargon as a way of maintaining their status, prestige and high earnings-potential, bamboozling the public and excluding them from meaningful discussion as part of what George Bernard Shaw...

Cochlear implants and therapeutics: a natural partnership?

Global awareness of cochlear implants as a solution for hearing loss is slowly increasing and gaining acceptance. The potential for combining cochlear implants with inner ear therapeutics is immense, with promise in several areas. This article takes us on a...

The role of significant others in hearing aid adoption

Presbycusis, or age-related hearing loss, is one of the most common conditions affecting older adults and its prevalence is found to increase with age. Over the years, amplification technology has advanced significantly from analogue to digital signal processing. Despite this,...

The future of inner ear drug delivery

The techniques for delivering drugs to the inner ear system are evolving. Jeffrey Harris considers the myths, the facts and the potential for drug delivery innovations and how they can improve tomorrow’s hearing outcomes. The inner ear’s delicate membranous structure,...

Health related quality of life measures as outcome parameters in middle ear diseases

Surely the only outcome needed for post-surgical ears is a better PTA? Marcus Neudert argues there should be more to it than that. To draw a comprehensive picture of the disease-associated restrictions in patients with chronic otitis media, audiometric outcome...

Physiological mechanisms of hyperacusis: an update

Hyperacusis is a heterogeneous and complex clinical entity, and proposals about physiological mechanisms should reflect these issues. Ben Auerbach helps us navigate through present knowledge in this area, and proposes future directions for research. Hyperacusis is a debilitating hearing disorder...

Innovative approaches to treating deafness

Shahar Taiber and Karen Avraham give us a summary of gene therapies for hearing loss, with an overview of limitations and what the future holds. Hearing loss is the most common sensory disorder. The last two decades have seen a...

The history of person-centred hearing care

In the World Report on Hearing, launched by the World Health Organization (WHO) on 3 March 2021, the use of person-centred care is highly recommended. In this article, we learn about the history of person-centred healthcare and hearing care. But...

Why hearing above 8 kHz matters more than you think

This review explores the significance of extended high-frequency hearing loss (above 8 kHz) and why it may be worth doing clinically more frequently. There are many conditions that may hide underneath a normal audiogram, and one of the easiest to...