Electric Response Audiometry in Clinical Practice

The measurement of electrical responses in the auditory system to sound stimuli has been increasingly refined during the past three decades and electric response audiometry has become a familiar diagnostic aid to those professionals working in the field of hearing impairment. Sophisticated techniques are now available to evaluate responses at all anatomical levels in the auditory system. The clinician who has to diagnose and treat those patients unable or unwilling to respond subjectively to routine audiometric tests can now objectively assess the auditory system using the techniques encompassed within the term electric response audiomentry. This is particularly pertinent to the detection of early hearing loss in children. Recent advances in surgical treatment of the profoundly deaf by the introduction of the multichannel cochlear implant have highlighted the importance of prior detailed knowledge of the electrophysiologic response in the audiometry system of the patient for implantation. In this comprehensive volume, the authors have provided both a reference work and a useful working manual which will find a place in the armamentarium of every practicing otologist, audiological physician, and all those concerned with the diagnosis and treatment of deafness.

Table of Contents:
Part 1 Basis of the auditory-evoked potentials: historical development of electric-response audiometry (ERA); anatomy, physiology, and classification of the generators of auditory-evoked potentials; basic principles of instrumentation and signal-processing. Part 2 Clinical use of auditory-evoked potentials: electrocochleography (ECochG); ECochG in hearing disorders; the auditory brainstem response (ABR); the ABR in hearing disorders and auditory dysfunction; middle-latency responses (MLR); the slow vertex response (SVR); other long latency responses. Part 3 Electric-response audiometry testing strategies: comparative assessment of ERA threshold techniques; ERA in hearing screening in neonates and infants; ERA in the `difficult-to-test child'; ERA in non-organic hearing loss (NOHL); ERA in neuro-otologic diagnosis; ERA in investigation of neurological disorders; monitoring auditory-evoked potentials during neuro-otologic surgery; electrically evoked potentials in cochlear stimulation; future developments.