Hearing aid handling skills: relationship with satisfaction and benefit.

Purpose: To evaluate hearing aid handling skills for new and experienced users and to assess if such skills influence user's benefit and satisfaction.

Methods: Seventy four participants (mean age of 70.43), experienced (n=37) or new hearing aid users (n=37) performed the tasks of "Practical Hearing Aid Skills Test" (PHAST), which were scored on a five-point Likert scale - higher scores indicate better hearing aid handling skills.

Teleaudiology: evaluation of teleconsultation efficacy for hearing aid fitting.

Purpose: To evaluate teleconsultation's efficacy for hearing aid fitting.

Methods: Fifty hearing impaired individuals with ages ranging from 39 to 88 years and mean audiometric thresholds between 30 and 68.75 dBHL participated in this study.

Comparison: real and simulated ear insertion gain.

Unlabelled: The development of hearing aid (HA) software programming does not replace the analysis of real ears with probe microphones.

Aim: To compare simulated insertion gain in HA software programming and real ear insertion gain.

Method: A prospective study of 62 patients (aged from 29 to 93 years; 30 male and 32 female).

Unilateral hearing loss: benefits and satisfaction from the use of hearing aids.

Unlabelled: A unilateral hearing loss is characterized by reduced hearing in one ear. The problems caused by sensory deprivation can be minimized with the use of hearing aids (HA).

Aim: To analyze the correlation between the prescribed grain and the insertion gain difference and with the results obtained regarding the benefit and satisfaction with the use of hearing aids in unilateral hearing impaired patients.

Temporal organization skills in cochlear implants recipients.

Unlabelled: Processing acoustic clues from the sounds of speech depends on the proper perception of the frequency and duration of stimuli as a sequence of events.

Aim: To assess the capacity for temporal organization in users of multichannel CI.

Method: 14 normal hearing individuals formed the control group, matching in age and gender other 14 users of multichannel CI, who made up the study group, and they were assessed and compared as to the Frequency Patterns Test (FPT) and Duration Patterns Test (DPT).

Comparative stereologic study between secretory and maturation ameloblasts in rat incisors.

The ameloblasts both in secretion phase and in smooth-ended ameloblasts in maturation phase were studied using stereologic methods in transmission electron microscopy (TEM). From secretion to maturation phase of amelogenesis, the nucleus volume decreased 23% and cytoplasm volume did not show significant changes; the total volume and surface of the rough endoplasmic reticulum (RER) decreased 74% and 90%, respectively, and of the mitochondria increased 742% and 384%, respectively; the surface-to-volume ratio for RER and mitochondria decrease 59% and 42%, respectively; and the predominantly apical secretory granules disappeared joined at Tomes’ process and lysosomes and phagic vacuoles have appeared principly in supranuclear cytoplasm. Although significant morphologic variation occurs from the secretory to the maturation phase of the ameloblasts, their cytoplasm volume remains unaltered.