Clinic Week # 12

This week, I didn't see anything exciting since it was the last week of clinic :) I decided to blog about my friend who is living in New York City.

She is a 26 year old female. She had been sick for a few weeks, cold, sinuses, etc and finally talked herself into going to the doctor. She thought she has a sinus infection. By the time she got an appointment with the ENT, the entire right side of her face was swollen and tender. She went to the ENT who told her that she DID NOt have a sinus infection and everything looked good. He did however test her acoustic reflexes. She did not have any reflexes in either ear. After these test results, the ENT referred her for an full audiologic evaluation and a CT scan. The results of her CT scan were normal, and she has not been able to get an appointment with the audiologist (at the time I wrote this blog).

I found this article titled the Prevalence and audiological characteristics in individuals with auditory neuropathy/auditory dys-synchrony. The results showed that 1 in 348 had auditory dys-synchrony. But, only 1 in 183 when only the individuals with permanent sensory and neural hearing loss had auditory dys-synchrony. Around 60% of the individuals had no measurable speech scores. In the methods section part of the criteria for identifying a aud. neuropathy was no evidence of a space occupying lesion on a neurological examination (i.e. MRI or CT scan).

As clinicians is it important for us know when to refer and what "red flags" we should be aware of. Hope you like it, check it out :)


Kumar, U., Jayaram, M. (2006) Prevalence and audiological characteristics in individuals with auditory neuropathy/auditory dys-synchrony. International Journal of Audiology, 45, 360-366.

http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdf?vid=16&hid=109&sid=e96a8942-9c85-4d8d-8101-9dbf40198a15%40sessionmgr108