Eelectrophysiological assessment for children with sensory neural hearing impairment

Abstract EN

Background : hearing impairment refers to a lessening of hearing ability in the widest possible sense, ranging from subjectively barely appreciable impairments to total deafness.

An identification or assessment method is broadly defined as any test, measure, or procedure that can be used to identify possible hearing impairment or assess the hearing status of infants and young children.

Auditory brain stem response is the most widely used physiological measures for neuro-otological evaluation.

The aim : the aims of this study are to assess children with sensory neural hearing impairment and to explore the importance and the benefits of auditory brain stem response (ABR ) in diagnosis of children with hearing impairment in Iraq.

Materials and methods : One hundred and ten Iraqi children with sensory neural hearing impairment (53 male and 57 female), and sixty normal hearing children (29 male and 31 female) are involve in this study.

The children between 1- 12 years age old .All children did auditory brain stem response.

Results : regarding the hearing threshold of left and right ears stimulation and the difference of hearing impairment degree between right & left ear of the children measured by ABR test the percentages of patients with severe degree of their hearing disability as it was measured by ABR test, with highest value in severe degree (54 patients , 49.1 %) and lowest value in borderline and profound degree (2 patients, 1.8 %).

Conclusions : ABR, is the main use in the assessment of hearing level in children with no age limitation or mentality state of patients, and in the determination of hearing threshold in children.