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Background: Survival from colon cancer (CC) has improved considerably over the last decades, yet many survivors suffer from late sequelae from treatment. Typical symptoms of bowel dysfunction after treatment of CC are diarrhea, urge for defecation, fecal incontinence, bloating and constipation. Most CC survivors make dietary changes to alleviate bowel symptoms. We aimed to describe the self-perceived effects of diet on bowel function among CC survivors and the level of dietary information given., Materials and Methods: In this cross-sectional study, CC patients from four surgical departments in Denmark completed surveys regarding the effects of diet on their bowel function and whether they had previously received dietary advice. Data concerning sociodemographic characteristics and the surgical procedure (right-sided or left-sided hemicolectomy) were collected from the Danish Colorectal Cancer Group database. Forty-four healthcare professionals specialized in CC completed a questionnaire on how they advise CC. Descriptive statistics were applied., Results: Among 1544 patients invited, 1239 (80.4%) responded, and 844 met the inclusion criteria (53% males, median age 72.6 years, median time since surgery 742 days). Among these, 267 (32%) reported that food affected bowel function. Fat was perceived to have a negative effect in 193 (25%), spices in 149 (19%), sweets in 101 (13%) and meat in 99 (13%). There was no association between tumor site and food categories affecting bowel function ( p  = 0.078). Most healthcare professionals (93%) stated that their unit gave advice about diet, but only 24% of patients remembered such information., Conclusion: One-third of CC survivors perceive that food items, especially fat and spices have a negative impact on their bowel function. We found a major discrepancy between healthcare professionals reporting that they provide advice and the proportion of patients remembering this. There is an unmet need for further recognition of the role of diet in CC rehabilitation and for intervention studies of treatment principles.

Objective: Examination of Danish data for medico-legal compensations regarding hearing disabilities. The study purposes are: (1) to investigate whether discrimination scores (DSs) relate to patients' subjective experience of their hearing and communication ability (the latter referring to audio-visual perception), (2) to compare DSs from different discrimination tests (auditory/audio-visual perception and without/with noise), and (3) to relate different handicap measures in the scaling used for compensation purposes in Denmark., Design: Data from a 15 year period (1999-2014) were collected and analysed., Study Sample: The data set includes 466 patients, from which 50 were omitted due to suspicion of having exaggerated their hearing disabilities., Results: The DSs relate well to the patients' subjective experience of their speech perception ability. By comparing DSs for different test setups it was found that adding noise entails a relatively more difficult listening condition than removing visual cues. The hearing and communication handicap degrees were found to agree, whereas the measured handicap degrees tended to be higher than the self-assessed handicap degrees., Conclusions: The DSs can be used to assess patients' hearing and communication abilities. The difference in the obtained handicap degrees emphasizes the importance of collecting self-assessed as well as measured handicap degrees.

Objective: The purpose of this study was to implement and evaluate a user-operated speech in noise test., Design: The test is based on the Danish speech material Dantale II, which consists of five words sentences ( Wagener et al, 2003 ). For each word presented the subject selected a response from ten alternative words. Two versions of the test were made: one with and one without the possibility that for each word presented the subject could answer "I do not know" (?-button). Using a listening test the two versions were evaluated against a traditional test, where the subjects orally repeated the words that were perceived., Study Sample: Twenty-four normal-hearing subjects., Results: The speech intelligibility as a function of the signal-to-noise ratio can be described by logistic functions in the different user-operated tests and in the traditional test. The logistic parameters obtained from the user-operated test with the ?-button agree with the parameters obtained in a traditional test. The homogeneity of the speech material is uninfluenced when the material is used in a user-operated test., Conclusions: It is reasonable to use the Dantale II speech material for a user-operated speech in noise test, and the use of the ?-button is favourable.