Journal Reviews archive for September 2019
Physician burnout and resident wellness
Physician burnout and high rates of mental health issues amongst physicians are an important concern today. Several articles on this subject have been published recently. However, few articles have been written about starting life balance training early during residency. This...
The role of cVEMPs in the diagnosis of Meniere’s disease
This study sets out to determine the most useful metrics to use from cervical-vestibular evoked myogenic potential (c-VEMP) tests when the diagnosis of Meniere’s disease (MD) is unclear, or as a follow-up tool. It is known that cVEMPs can detect...
Do you feel me? Emotional processing post-traumatic brain injury
Traumatic brain injury (TBI) accounted for just under three million accident and emergency admissions in the US in 2013, with common causes including falls, traffic accidents and assaults. Difficulties processing and expressing affective communication is a common sequela of TBI...
This is what SLTs can do for mild TBI: presenting a care model
The authors of this article estimate there are around six-to-eight million people who sustain a mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) per annum in the United States (US) as a consequence of sports injuries, traffic accidents, military service-related injuries, falls, assaults...
Deglutition in pharyngolaryngectomy patients
Circular defects after total pharyngolaryngectomy present a reconstructive challenge. In this study, the authors compared the swallowing results after three reconstructive techniques: free forearm flap, free jejunal loop and folded pectoralis major flap. Forty-six patients were included and were evaluated...
The GP and the ear
General practitioners are the first members of the medical community to deal with ear problems. In this survey, 11 GPs examined 124 patients using a regular otoscope and a video-otoscope and reported their findings in a 10-item table. The same...
Listening effort and speech perception performance
Capturing speech perception performance in noisy listening environments is a key part in validating any hearing instrument. Traditionally audiologists have always measured this performance in noisy environments by looking at thresholds, i.e. speech reception thresholds or signal to noise ratios....
Tinnitus loudness and insomnia
Tinnitus may be very bothersome for its sufferers, in some cases leading to suicide. Therefore, it is extremely important to offer the best available treatment to people suffering from tinnitus. This study considered whether insomnia may be associated with the...
Lymph node ratio in tongue cancer
This is an analysis of 88 patients treated in Switzerland between 2003 and 2012. All patients had a selective neck dissection and recurrence occurred in 25 patients. Overall and disease specific survival were 72% and 80%. They specifically looked at...
Infection in prosthetic temporomandibular joints
This is an overview from an internationally recognised TMJ surgeon. It is a comprehensive article highlighting the incidence is likely to be underestimated and prevention the main objective. Eradication is very difficult. Not surprisingly, a lot of the conclusions are...
Online group therapy is easier but is it better?
Aphasia is a communication disability caused by stroke, brain injury or dementia. People with aphasia benefit from both the emotional and communication support that group therapy can provide, yet there can be many barriers to accessing this type of intervention,...
Information to support decision-making: does it make sense online?
The internet has become a major source for health information, with many people preferring to use the internet to search for advice than speaking to health professionals. Yet much of the information available is very difficult to read for the...
