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An overview of human factors in ENT and anaesthesia

James Bates and Chris Frerk are both passionate about how human factors science can improve safety in healthcare and have co-authored this article describing how communication, ergonomics and other non-technical skills are making operating theatres safer. There is no doubt...

Measuring the pitch and loudness of tinnitus

Matching the characteristics of tinnitus Many researchers and clinicians have explored the subjective nature of tinnitus by asking people with tinnitus to adjust a sound so that it matches their tinnitus in some way. This can be useful both for...

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...

A psychophysical perspective on single-sided deafness and its treatment by cochlear implants

Bob Carlyon gives us a psychophysical perspective on the hearing benefits that can and cannot be achieved for patients with single-sided deafness with a cochlear implant, and discusses some of the challenges in maximising the effectiveness of the treatment. He...

Screening for hearing loss with mHealth solutions

With the number of people suffering from hearing loss growing all the time, the need for early detection and intervention is imperative. De Wet Swanepoel discusses two examples of mHealth possibilities for hearing screening which, as a low cost solution,...

Hidden hearing loss in humans: cochlear synaptopathy is superseded by cognitive effects when listening to speech in noise

Elizabeth Beach presents an overview of the recent research being undertaken at the National Acoustic Laboratories on speech in noise and its relationship to cochlear synaptopathy. Our team at the National Acoustic Laboratories (NAL) has been investigating hidden hearing loss...

Neurological idiopathic disease: a shared journey for NASA and medicine

Whilst Southampton can’t really be described as an extreme environment, experiments carried out in the city have certainly been taken out of this world. Robert Marchbanks discusses one of the associations between Southampton, The International Space Station and tympanic membrane...