"I Hope That the People Caring for Me Know About Me": Exploring Person-Centred Care and the Quality of Dementia Care.

Background: Person-centred care is at the core of high-quality dementia care but people living with dementia are often excluded from quality improvement efforts. We sought to explore person-centred care and quality of care from the perspectives of persons living with dementia in the community and their care partners.

Methods: We used a qualitative descriptive approach with in-person, semi-structured interviews with 17 participants (9 persons living with dementia and 8 care partners) from Ontario, Canada.

Use of participatory action research approach to develop a self-management resource for persons living with dementia.

This article describes the use of a participatory action research (PAR) approach to developing a self-management resource for persons living with dementia and care partners. Despite growing evidence that persons with dementia are able to contribute in meaningful ways to decision-making about their care and life preferences, few opportunities exist for them to participate in the design of resources and services meant for them. There is also a need to support the self-management of persons living with dementia with the provision of accurate, high quality, user-friendly information.

A Spectral Comparison of Jarosites Using Techniques Relevant to the Robotic Exploration of Biosignatures on Mars.

The acidic sulfate-rich waters of the Meridiani Planum region were potentially a habitable environment for iron-oxidizing bacteria on ancient Mars. If life existed in this ancient martian environment, jarosite minerals precipitating in these waters may record evidence of this biological activity. Since the Meridiani jarosite is thermodynamically stable at the martian surface, any biosignatures preserved in the jarosites may be readily available for analysis in the current surface sediments during the ongoing robotic exploration of Mars.

Speech Understanding in Noise for Adults With Cochlear Implants: Effects of Hearing Configuration, Source Location Certainty, and Head Movement.

Purpose: The primary purpose of this study was to assess speech understanding in quiet and in diffuse noise for adult cochlear implant (CI) recipients utilizing bimodal hearing or bilateral CIs. Our primary hypothesis was that bilateral CI recipients would demonstrate less effect of source azimuth in the bilateral CI condition due to symmetric interaural head shadow.

Method: Sentence recognition was assessed for adult bilateral (n = 25) CI users and bimodal listeners (n = 12) in three conditions: (1) source location certainty regarding fixed target azimuth, (2) source location uncertainty regarding roving target azimuth, and (3) Condition 2 repeated, allowing listeners to turn their heads, as needed.

Speech Understanding and Sound Source Localization by Cochlear Implant Listeners Using a Pinna-Effect Imitating Microphone and an Adaptive Beamformer.

Background: Sentence understanding scores for patients with cochlear implants (CIs) when tested in quiet are relatively high. However, sentence understanding scores for patients with CIs plummet with the addition of noise.

Purpose: To assess, for patients with CIs (MED-EL), (1) the value to speech understanding of two new, noise-reducing microphone settings and (2) the effect of the microphone settings on sound source localization.

Using ILD or ITD Cues for Sound Source Localization and Speech Understanding in a Complex Listening Environment by Listeners With Bilateral and With Hearing-Preservation Cochlear Implants.

Purpose: To assess the role of interaural time differences and interaural level differences in (a) sound-source localization, and (b) speech understanding in a cocktail party listening environment for listeners with bilateral cochlear implants (CIs) and for listeners with hearing-preservation CIs.

Methods: Eleven bilateral listeners with MED-EL (Durham, NC) CIs and 8 listeners with hearing-preservation CIs with symmetrical low frequency, acoustic hearing using the MED-EL or Cochlear device were evaluated using 2 tests designed to task binaural hearing, localization, and a simulated cocktail party. Access to interaural cues for localization was constrained by the use of low-pass, high-pass, and wideband noise stimuli.

Creating space for citizenship: The impact of group structure on validating the voices of people with dementia.

Recently, there has been increasing attention given to finding ways to help people diagnosed with dementia 'live well' with their condition. Frequently however, the attention has been placed on the family care partner as the foundation for creating a context that supports the person with dementia to live well. A recent participatory action research (PAR) study highlighted the importance of beginning to challenge some of the assumptions around how best to include family, especially within a context of supporting citizenship.

Sound Source Localization by Normal-Hearing Listeners, Hearing-Impaired Listeners and Cochlear Implant Listeners.

Objective: Our primary aim was to determine whether listeners in the following patient groups achieve localization accuracy within the 95th percentile of accuracy shown by younger or older normal-hearing (NH) listeners: (1) hearing impaired with bilateral hearing aids, (2) bimodal cochlear implant (CI), (3) bilateral CI, (4) hearing preservation CI, (5) single-sided deaf CI and (6) combined bilateral CI and bilateral hearing preservation.

Design: The listeners included 57 young NH listeners, 12 older NH listeners, 17 listeners fit with hearing aids, 8 bimodal CI listeners, 32 bilateral CI listeners, 8 hearing preservation CI listeners, 13 single-sided deaf CI listeners and 3 listeners with bilateral CIs and bilateral hearing preservation. Sound source localization was assessed in a sound-deadened room with 13 loudspeakers arrayed in a 180-degree arc.

Sound Source Localization and Speech Understanding in Complex Listening Environments by Single-sided Deaf Listeners After Cochlear Implantation.

Objective: To assess improvements in sound source localization and speech understanding in complex listening environments after unilateral cochlear implantation for single-sided deafness (SSD).

Study Design: Nonrandomized, open, prospective case series.

Setting: Tertiary referral center.

Interaural level difference cues determine sound source localization by single-sided deaf patients fit with a cochlear implant.

In this report, we used filtered noise bands to constrain listeners' access to interaural level differences (ILDs) and interaural time differences (ITDs) in a sound source localization task. The samples of interest were listeners with single-sided deafness (SSD) who had been fit with a cochlear implant in the deafened ear (SSD-CI). The comparison samples included listeners with normal hearing and bimodal hearing, i.

Sound source localization by hearing preservation patients with and without symmetrical low-frequency acoustic hearing.

The aim of this article was to study sound source localization by cochlear implant (CI) listeners with low-frequency (LF) acoustic hearing in both the operated ear and in the contralateral ear. Eight CI listeners had symmetrical LF acoustic hearing and 4 had asymmetrical LF acoustic hearing. The effects of two variables were assessed: (i) the symmetry of the LF thresholds in the two ears and (ii) the presence/absence of bilateral acoustic amplification.

Factors constraining the benefit to speech understanding of combining information from low-frequency hearing and a cochlear implant.

Many studies have documented the benefits to speech understanding when cochlear implant (CI) patients can access low-frequency acoustic information from the ear opposite the implant. In this study we assessed the role of three factors in determining the magnitude of bimodal benefit - (i) the level of CI-only performance, (ii) the magnitude of the hearing loss in the ear with low-frequency acoustic hearing and (iii) the type of test material. The patients had low-frequency PTAs (average of 125, 250 and 500 Hz) varying over a large range (<30 dB HL to >70 dB HL) in the ear contralateral to the implant.

Interaural level differences and sound source localization for bilateral cochlear implant patients.

Objectives: The aims of this study were (i) to determine the magnitude of the interaural level differences (ILDs) that remain after cochlear implant (CI) signal processing and (ii) to relate the ILDs to the pattern of errors for sound source localization on the horizontal plane.

Design: The listeners were 16 bilateral CI patients fitted with MED-EL CIs and 34 normal-hearing listeners. The stimuli were wideband, high-pass, and low-pass noise signals.

Bimodal cochlear implants: the role of acoustic signal level in determining speech perception benefit.

The aim of this project was to determine for bimodal cochlear implant (CI) patients, i.e. patients with low-frequency hearing in the ear contralateral to the implant, how speech understanding varies as a function of the difference in level between the CI signal and the acoustic signal.

Development and validation of the pediatric AzBio sentence lists.

Objectives: The goal of this study was to create and validate a new set of sentence lists that could be used to evaluate the speech-perception abilities of listeners with hearing loss in cases where adult materials are inappropriate due to difficulty level or content. The authors aimed to generate a large number of sentence lists with an equivalent level of difficulty for the evaluation of performance over time and across conditions.

Design: The original Pediatric AzBio sentence corpus included 450 sentences recorded from one female talker.

Sound source localization of filtered noises by listeners with normal hearing: a statistical analysis.

Several measures of sound source localization performance of 45 listeners with normal hearing were obtained when loudspeakers were in the front hemifield. Localization performance was not statistically affected by filtering the 200-ms, 2-octave or wider noise bursts (125 to 500, 1500 to 6000, and 125 to 6000 Hz wide noise bursts). This implies that sound source localization performance for noise stimuli is not differentially affected by which interaural cue (interaural time or level difference) a listener with normal hearing uses for sound source localization, at least for relatively broadband signals.

Localization and speech understanding by a patient with bilateral cochlear implants and bilateral hearing preservation.

Objectives: The authors describe the localization and speech-understanding abilities of a patient fit with bilateral cochlear implants (CIs) for whom acoustic low-frequency hearing was preserved in both cochleae.

Design: Three signals were used in the localization experiments: low-pass, high-pass, and wideband noise. Speech understanding was assessed with the AzBio sentences presented in noise.

Current research with cochlear implants at Arizona State University.

In this article we review, and discuss the clinical implications of, five projects currently underway in the Cochlear Implant Laboratory at Arizona State University. The projects are (1) norming the AzBio sentence test, (2) comparing the performance of bilateral and bimodal cochlear implant (CI) patients in realistic listening environments, (3) accounting for the benefit provided to bimodal patients by low-frequency acoustic stimulation, (4) assessing localization by bilateral hearing aid patients and the implications of that work for hearing preservation patients, and (5) studying heart rate variability as a possible measure for quantifying the stress of listening via an implant. The long-term goals of the laboratory are to improve the performance of patients fit with cochlear implants and to understand the mechanisms, physiological or electronic, that underlie changes in performance.

BILATERAL AND BIMODAL BENEFITS AS A FUNCTION OF AGE FOR ADULTS FITTED WITH A COCHLEAR IMPLANT.

Background: Both bilateral cochlear implants (CIs) and bimodal (electric plus contralateral acoustic) stimulation can provide better speech intelligibility than a single CI. In both cases patients need to combine information from two ears into a single percept. In this paper we ask whether the physiological and psychological processes associated with aging alter the ability of bilateral and bimodal CI patients to combine information across two ears in the service of speech understanding.

Development and validation of the AzBio sentence lists.

Objectives: The goal of this study was to create and validate a new set of sentence lists that could be used to evaluate the speech perception abilities of hearing-impaired listeners and cochlear implant (CI) users. Our intention was to generate a large number of sentence lists with an equivalent level of difficulty for the evaluation of performance over time and across conditions.

Design: The AzBio sentence corpus includes 1000 sentences recorded from two female and two male talkers.

Word recognition following implantation of conventional and 10-mm hybrid electrodes.

We compared the effectiveness of 2 surgical interventions for improving word recognition ability in a quiet environment among patients who presented with: (1) bilateral, precipitously sloping, high-frequency hearing loss; (2) relatively good auditory thresholds at and below 500 Hz, and (3) poor speech recognition. In 1 intervention (n = 25), a conventional electrode array was inserted into 1 cochlea. As a consequence, hearing was lost in the implanted ear.

Performance of patients using different cochlear implant systems: effects of input dynamic range.

Objective: To determine, for patients who had identical levels of performance on a monosyllabic word test presented in quiet, whether device differences would affect performance when tested with other materials and in other test conditions.

Design: For Experiment 1, from a test population of 76 patients, three groups (N = 13 in each group) were created. Patients in the first group used the CII Bionic Ear behind-the-ear (BTE) speech processor, patients in the second group used the Esprit3G BTE speech processor, and patients in the third group used the Tempo+ BTE speech processor.

An electric frequency-to-place map for a cochlear implant patient with hearing in the nonimplanted ear.

The aim of this study was to relate the pitch of high-rate electrical stimulation delivered to individual cochlear implant electrodes to electrode insertion depth and insertion angle. The patient (CH1) was able to provide pitch matches between electric and acoustic stimulation because he had auditory thresholds in his nonimplanted ear ranging between 30 and 60 dB HL over the range, 250 Hz to 8 kHz. Electrode depth and insertion angle were measured from high-resolution computed tomography (CT) scans of the patient's temporal bones.

A new autosomal recessive spastic ataxia associated with frequent white matter changes maps to 2q33-34.

Recessive ataxias are a heterogeneous group of diseases. We identified a group of 23 French-Canadian cases belonging to 17 families affected by an autosomal recessive spastic ataxia associated with frequent white matter changes. The fact that 59% of these families have a genealogical relationship to the Portneuf County of Quebec suggests that this is a new form of ataxia with a regional founder effect.