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Live versus e-learning – which is the most effective communication training approach for health care staff?

If staff are unable to communicate with their patients this can impact negatively on the patient’s healthcare. They may be excluded from decisions about their own care and their rights to informed consent may be violated. Conversation partner training has...

Endoscopic Sinus Surgery: Anatomy, Three-Dimensional Reconstruction and Surgical Technique - Fourth Edition

Although nothing can substitute for hands-on training and time in theatre, this book is about as close as any trainee wanting to make up for training time lost to the COVID-19 pandemic, will get. Whether bought as reading for a...

Third-party disability in cochlear implant users

Hearing loss causes changes for those experiencing it and the people who share in their everyday lives, often referred to as third party disability or caregiver burden. This study emphasises the notion that this phenomenon can be considered a disability,...

Infection and other factors influencing post-tonsillectomy haemorrhage

In this detailed narrative review article, the authors have addressed several factors which could be related to postoperative bleeding after tonsillectomy. As regards to microbiology, the significance of micro-organisms present both on surface and within the tonsils is emphasised and...

Complication rates for grommet insertion in H&N cancer patients

Otitis Media (OM) can be the direct result of H&N malignancy itself or secondary to treatment of malignancy. Both surgery and radiotherapy can cause lasting changes to the physiologic function of the ET, middle ear, tympanic membrane and ear canal....

OTO-104 in noise-induced and cisplatin-induced hearing loss

These two animal studies report on potential new applications for intra-tympanic OTO-104, a slow-release hydrogel formulation of dexamethasone that is currently being used in a Europe-wide randomised trial for Ménière’s disease. In the first paper, guinea pigs were given a...

Alcohol consumption and the risk of developing benign laryngeal disorders?

Alcohol consumption among South Korean adults is apparently high, with over three quarters of the adult population consuming alcohol and a ‘high-risk’ drinking rate of one in five. Excessive alcohol consumption is considered to be a risk factor for developing...

Newborn sensorineural hearing loss – what is the incidence?

In the last two decades, the introduction of newborn screening for hearing loss has dramatically lowered the average age of newborn hearing loss diagnosis to around two to three months of age. The benefits of early diagnosis are manifold, enabling...

Storytelling is good for your memory

Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) presents a challenging frontier in healthcare due to the limited availability of effective drugs. Despite its prevalence and potential progression to dementia, there remains a notable gap in pharmacological interventions targeting MCI. This month’s Editors’ Choice...

New MRI technique assesses treatment response in skull base osteomyelitis

This paper describes another useful imaging technique to monitor Necrotising Otitis Externa (NOE). Echoplanar diffusion weighted magnetic resonance (DW MR) shows high signal on the ‘ADC map’ with active disease and this reduces in signal intensity as symptoms improve. This...

Spasmodic dysphonia – is greater awareness needed?

Spasmodic dysphonia (SD) is a focal dystonia of the laryngeal musculature. Previously considered to be a rare disorder, it has more recently been suggested that SD is in fact not rare but is frequently misdiagnosed or undiagnosed. This paper would...