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Genetic testing in congenital hearing loss

Advances in genetic testing over the last decade have reduced the cost and time such testing required and increased understanding of the genes involved in conditions like congenital hearing loss. This study from Atlanta looks at genetic testing from a...

Can you hear the speech disorder?

Dysarthria is often the first or most pronounced feature of a Parkinson’s disease (PD) presentation, yet may be difficult to discern from normal ageing changes that impact voice and speech. Thus, it is important to be able to differentiate in...

Narrow band imaging in laryngopharyngeal reflux

Narrow band imaging (NBI) is a tool on the Olympus endoscopic systems that uses blue and green wavelengths to enhance visualisation of mucosal vasculature. It has been used to aid in the early diagnosis of upper aerodigestive tract cancers. A...

Bright young things: executive functioning in younger, older and aphasic people

Executive function comprises several higher order cognitive processes such as planning, organisation, adaptation, maintenance, monitoring and decision making. It is thought that difficulties in cognitive flexibility in people with aphasia are associated with difficulties in executive function rather than the...

Salivary pepsin – a simple test for LPR?

A diagnosis of laryngopharyngeal reflux (LPR) can be made on the basis of characteristic symptoms and nasendoscopy findings. Objective tests exist for this condition; for example, 24-hour dual-channel pH-metry which is considered to be the gold standard. Such tests are,...

Reasons for attending annual hearing aid review appointments

The aim of this study was to investigate what factors influence hearing aid users’ decision to attend or not attend an annual hearing aid review (HAR) appointment. Two separate surveys were created for attendees and non-attendees. An invitation letter was...

Clinical histopathology of 250 parotidectomy patients

Clinical histopathology of 250 parotidectomy patients This is a retrospective study of 250 consecutive parotidectomy patients at units in Belgium and the Netherlands. The sensitivity and specificity of FNAC was 64% and 99% respectively, the sensitivity being slightly lower than...

Doing it for the men: diversifying the speech and language therapy profession

It is known that many health professions are dominated by females, particularly the allied health professions, such as speech and language therapy. This is more pronounced in the US than in the UK, Australia and other countries. The authors of...

Counting up discourse

Speech and language researchers and health professionals alike strive to measure communication abilities using relevant and psychometrically sound tools. Discourse measures are potential tools which reflect everyday communication more accurately than other more traditional measures. However, time has been a...

Mental practice could be a great COVID-19 solution for delivering swallow rehab

Motor imagery is defined as the process of voluntarily generating a mental image of a motor function without actually doing said function. Mental practice (MP) is the process of doing this repeatedly; practising it. There is some evidence that this...

Brown classification of a maxillary defect and prognosis

This is a retrospective study from Peking over the 10-year period, 2000-2010, for 137 patients with maxillary squamous cell carcinoma assessed. The overall survival rate was comparable with other studies at 64.8%. The most common Brown maxillary defect was 2b...

How long is too long? Waiting times for speech and language therapy

Waiting lists are a reality of clinical practice, and many health and social care professionals become used to having to cope with this. The authors of this paper addressed this issue by examining written submissions to the 2014 Senate Inquiry...