Auditory Spatial Discrimination and Sound Localization in Single-Sided Deaf Participants Provided with a Cochlear Implant.

Introduction: Spatial hearing is most accurate using both ears, but accuracy decreases in persons with asymmetrical hearing between ears. In participants with deafness in one ear but normal hearing in the other ear (single-sided deafness [SSD]), this difference can be compensated by a unilateral cochlear implant (CI). It has been shown that a CI can restore sound localization performance, but it is still unclear to what extent auditory spatial discrimination can be improved.

Prevention of sustained ventricular tachyarrhythmias in patients with implantable cardioverter-defibrillators-the PREVENT study.

Background: In patients with implantable cardioverter-defibrillators (ICDs), 25 to 45% of tachyarrhythmia episodes were initiated by short-long-short RR intervals.

Methods: The prospective multi-center PREVENT study randomized patients implanted with ICDs capable of atrioventricular pacing, in order to compare-using a cross-over design with two 3-month treatment periods-the benefits of 'rate smoothing' (RS) as a 'pause-prevention algorithm' for the prevention of ventricular tachyarrhythmias.

Result: Follow-up included 219 patients with implanted ICDs, of whom 153 were eligible for analysis as per protocol.