Neonatal Hearing Impairment Clinical Trial
Official title:
Neonatal Hearing Screening at Neonatal Intensive Care Unit of Assiut University Hospital
Hearing loss is one of the most common congenital anomalies. Early Intervention at or before 6 months of age allows a child with impaired hearing to develop normal speech and language.Auditory brainstem response , otoacoustic emissions testing have all been used in newborn hearing-screening programs
Hearing loss is one of the most common congenital anomalies . It has been shown to be greater
than that of most other diseases and syndromes (eg, phenylketonuria, sickle cell disease)
screened at birth . Data from the newborn hearing-screening programs in Rhode Island,
Colorado, and Texas showed that 2-4 of every 1000 neonates have hearing loss.
Early Intervention at or before 6 months of age allows a child with impaired hearing to
develop normal speech and language, alongside his or her hearing peers and can prevent severe
psychosocial, educational, and language impairment.( One of the most high risk population are
neonates who spend time in the newborn intensive care unit, exposed to high frequency
ventilation, hyperbilirubinemia, low birth-weight, and exposed to ototoxic medications.
Auditory brainstem response, otoacoustic emissions , and automated Auditory brainstem
response testing have all been used in newborn hearing-screening programs. otoacoustic
emissions are fast objective, efficient, and frequency-specific measurements of peripheral
auditory sensitivity are used to assess response of the outer hair cells to acoustic stimuli.
To measure otoacoustic emissions, a probe assembly is placed in the ear canal, tonal or click
stimuli are delivered, and the otoacoustic emissions generated by the cochlea is measured
with a microphone .
Currently, 2 types of evoked otoacoustic emissions measurements are used for newborn hearing
screening: transient evoked otoacoustic emissions and distortion product otoacoustic
emissions . Provided that the patient's middle ear function is normal, these measurements can
be used to assess cochlear function for the 500-6000 Hz frequency range. The presence of
evoked otoacoustic emissions responses indicates hearing sensitivity in the normal to
near-normal range .
The Auditory brainstem response test records brainstem electrical activity in response to
sounds presented to the infant via earphones. In contrast to the otoacoustic emissions test,
the The Auditory brainstem response evaluates the auditory pathway from the external ear to
the level of the brainstem, enabling diagnosis of auditory neuropathy, which is a less common
cause of hearing impairment .
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