Sound and postural control during stance tasks in abnormal subjective haptic vertical.

Background: Patients with vestibular impairment often suffer from postural instability. This could be compensated by other sensory systems such as the auditory system.

Objective: The aim of this study was to investigate whether auditory input improves postural stability in patients with abnormal subjective haptic vertical (SHV).

Influence of Auditory Information on Postural Control During Different Gait Tasks in the Elderly.

Background: Hearing loss is frequently associated with reduced postural control. This is possibly not only related to simultaneous pathophysiological changes within the hearing and vestibular system. The auditory input itself could provide helpful information for maintaining postural control.

Digital Live Imaging of Intraoperative Electrocochleography - First Description of Feasibility and Hearing Preservation During Cochlear Implantation.

Introduction: Intraoperative electrocochleography (ECochG) during cochlear implantation is a promising tool to preserve residual hearing. However, the time gap between insertion of the electrode and acoustic feedback from the audiologist to the surgeon can cause delay and subsequently irreparable damage to cochlear structures. In this feasibility study, for the first time, real-time visualization of intraoperative ECochG via digital microscope display directly to the surgeon was successfully performed in four patients.

A static sound source can improve postural stability during walking.

Background: During walking, postural stability is controlled by visual, vestibular and proprioceptive input. The auditory system uses acoustic input to localize sound sources. For some static balance conditions, the auditory influence on posture was already proven.

Auditory influence on postural control during stance tasks in different acoustic conditions.

Background: Postural stability might be influenced by auditory input as humans utilize spatiotemporal information to localise sound sources. Earlier studies investigated the acoustic influence on posture but unfortunately experimental setup, room acoustics and conditions of participants varied widely.

Objective: This study aimed at recording body sway velocity under clearly defined acoustic conditions in a homogenous group of young healthy participants.

Benefit of directional microphones for unilateral, bilateral and bimodal cochlear implant users.

Objective: To compare the standard T-Mic setting to UltraZoom and StereoZoom in 10 unilateral cochlear implant (CI) users, 10 bimodal device users and 10 bilateral CI users as well as a normal hearing (NH) reference group (n = 10).

Method: Speech reception thresholds were measured using the Oldenburg sentence test in noise. Speech was presented from the front at 0°, noise was presented from five loudspeakers spaced at ±60°, ±120°, 180° (setup A) or from four loudspeakers in the front hemisphere at ±30°, ±60° and one at 180° (setup B).

Use of high-rate envelope speech cues and their perceptually relevant dynamic range for the hearing impaired.

The ability of hearing-impaired (HI) listeners to use high-rate envelope information in a competing-talker situation was assessed. In experiment 1, signals were tone vocoded and the cutoff frequency (f(c)) of the envelope extraction filter was either 50 Hz (E filter) or 200 Hz (P filter). The channels for which the P or E filter was used were varied.