Clinic Blog / Week # 3

This week in clinic I finally was able to do some kindergarden re-screens. I thought this was a good opportunity to stress the importance of newborn hearing screenings. I love working with children and thought I would use this topic as my blog for this week. Every year 2-4 infants of every 1000 births are born with a hearing impairment. The cost of a newborn hearing screenings is ~$50. ABR and OAE are normally used and I think are definitly cost effective. I think we all understand the importance of early identification adn early intervention. The latest informantion I found was from 2005, and that said that only 37 states had implemented universal newborn hearing screenings. What are the other 13 states waiting for !??!? I have listed a few articles I found that talk about universal newborn hearing screenings.....check them out :)

Stone, K., Smith, B., Lambke, J., Clark, L., & McLellan M. (2000). Universal newborn hearing screening. The Journal of Family Practice, 49, 1012- 1016.

Stredler-Brown, A., & Arehart, K. (1998). Universal newborn hearing screening: impact on early intervention services. Volta Review, 5, 85-117.

This was the second week of clinic and I performed my first full hearing evaluation. It was a WVU Physical Plant worker who had come in for his annual evaluation. Otoscopy was normal, the ear drum was visible and appeared intact. Immittance testing was also performed and resulted in bilateral, Type A tympanograms and normaly acoustic reflxes and acoustic decay. SRT levels with in good agreement with PTA. The client had mostly normal hearing with a sloping mild loss starting around 4000 Hz. This client said he always wore hearing protection and I gave him a few pairs to take with him. He also reported loud hobbies outside of his work environment such as hunting and cutting tress. I found an article relate to hearing protection in hunters. Check out the authors !!!!

Woodford, C., & Lass, N. (1994). Hearing Conservation in Hunter Education Programs, American Journal of Audiology, 3, 8-10.

Blog # 1
In clinic I saw a client who reported having trouble with both of his hearing aids. The left seemed to be completely dead and he was not even wearing it. He had put it in a Dry Aid Kit, but that did not seem to help. The right he explained to have some "delay" when he turned it on. This had been happening for about 3 months. Vaccuum and suctioning did not seem to help either of the two hearing aids. The client was recommend to get a Global Dry and Store kit. http://www.dryandstore.com/ . One of my friends uses this Dry and Store Kit and loves it. She has worn bilateral BTE hearing aids since she was a little girl. When she first started using this Dry and Store kit, she could really tell an improvment. She now puts her heraing aids in it every night!!! I have also heard of other people that use Dry and Store products and swear by them. Sounds like we should recommend these more often !!!

Let's try this one more time.....Today is June 11, 2007. Can you see this ?!?!?
*Jaryn