Search

Patients with Voice problems are frequently encountered in clinics. There is no tool available in Punjabi language for evaluation of impact of voice disorder on patient's life. The aim of this study was to adapt Voice Handicap Index in Punjabi language and to obtain validity, reliability and consistency of the developed tool. The study also aims to compare the scores of VHI-Punjabi between patients with voice problems and asymptomatic age-matched controls. The study follows qualitative research design with purposive sampling. The study was conducted at the Audiology and SLP unit of ENT, Guru Gobind Singh Medical College and Hospital, Faridkot, Punjab. A total of 200 subjects in the age group of 20-50 years were included, 100 each in study and control group. Combination of reverse translation, committee, and bilingual models were used for development of VHI-Punjabi. The construct validity was very good (r = 0.91). A statistically significant difference (p < 0.001) was obtained between the study group and control group in all the subtest scores and on the total scores of VHI-Punjabi. Statistical significant correlation is found in two administrations of VHI-Punjabi after a gap of 2 weeks in both study group and control group (p < 0.001). To find the internal consistency of VHI-Punjabi, Chronbach alpha was calculated, which came to be 0.97. The internal consistency was high. The results of the present study indicate that VHI-Punjabi is a valid and reliable tool that can be used for evaluation of patients with different types of voice problems., Competing Interests: Conflict of InterestNil., (© Association of Otolaryngologists of India 2024. Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.)

Voice disorders are thought to be one of the major occupational hazards of school teaching. There is a need to study the prevalence of vocal fatigue in school teachers as it is unknown in Indian population and its awareness is at a very basic level. We aim to investigate percentage of school teachers reporting vocal fatigue and to find if there is any relationship between vocal fatigue and acoustic voice parameters. A total of 100 subjects (50-males and 50-females) in the age range of 25-35 years participated in the study. Voice Sample was obtained from the subject using a digital tape recorder and was analyzed in Visi pitch and Dr.Speech softwares. The sample was taken twice in a day, that is, before teaching and after teaching. The mean values obtained on all the questions of the vocal fatigue questionnaire show a significant increase in mean values on all the questions at post teaching ratings. Results revealed a statistically significant difference in pre and post teaching values of F0 and shimmer in males. In females, statistical significant difference was obtained in Noise to Harmonic Ratio in /u/ production. No significant correlation between acoustic parameters and overall vocal fatigue was found except for Noise to Harmonic ratio in females for /u/., Competing Interests: Conflict of interestNo conflict of interest., (© Association of Otolaryngologists of India 2020.)

Very few published studies have reported auditory speech perception in Hindi children with pre-lingual hearing loss. The study is aimed at comparing the speech perception skills of Hindi speaking children with pre-lingual severe to profound hearing loss using hearing aids and cochlear implants. Forty-three 6 to 8-year old children were included as participants, of which 22 were bilateral behind-the-ear hearing aid (HA) users and 21 were unilateral cochlear implant (CI) users. Speech perception was assessed through a forced-choice, picture-pointing task using recorded stimuli presented at 70 dB HL in the sound field. The skills assessed include: (a) pattern perception, (b) bisyllabic word identification, (c) monosyllabic word identification, (d) sentence identification and (e) minimal pair identification. Children using CI consistently performed significantly better than those with HA on all tasks. For the skills assessed, best performance was seen in pattern perception and poorest performance was seen in monosyllabic word identification. One participant from the CI group obtained ceiling scores for pattern perception and bisyllabic word identification. There was no statistically significant difference in the performance of 6 to 7 and 7 to 8-year-old children for any of the tasks. Children fitted with CI have better access to the cues important for perception of speech and hence perform consistently better than those using hearing aids. Recorded speech perception test can be used with children using cochlear implants and hearing aids., Competing Interests: Conflict of interestNone., (© Association of Otolaryngologists of India 2018.)

To compare sentence recognition scores in quiet and noise in 8 to 15-years old children using bimodal hearing in CI only condition and bimodal condition (BM) (CI + HA). Twenty prelingually deafened participants (8-15 years) using cochlear implant in one ear and hearing aid in the other ear were recruited. The sentence recognition was assessed in CI Quiet, CI + 15 dB SNR, CI + 8 dB SNR, BM Quiet, BM + 15 dB SNR and BM + 8 dB SNR. The highest sentence recognition scores were obtained in the quiet condition, followed by the + 15 dB SNR and then by the + 8 dB SNR condition in both CI only and BM conditions. The sentence recognition scores obtained in BM condition were significantly better than CI only condition. Variables like unaided PTA and aided PTA correlated significantly with the sentence recognition scores in BM conditions. This study was done on Indian population where till date no published data is available. It recommends that all the school going children using unilateral cochlear implants should be recommended to use a hearing aid in the contra lateral ear. This practice will help them to receive all the binaural benefits, better listening in noise, localization, spatial release from masking and pitch perception in comparison to unilateral CI use. Moreover, it will help to keep the auditory nerve viable for future implantation which is an important implication for children who have limited benefit from the contra lateral hearing aid., (© Association of Otolaryngologists of India 2018.)

The study was conducted to evaluate the audiological and electrophysiological findings in patients with Vitiligo and to compare the findings with otologically and audiologically normal controls. Study group included 50 subjects (25 Males, 25 Females) with Vitiligo (Mean age-27.4 years) and control group contained 40 age-matched normal hearing subjects. Pure tone audiometry (PTA) with extended high frequency audiometry, Otoacoustic emissions (OAEs), Tympanometry, Auditory brainstem responses (ABR) and Middle latency responses (MLR) were conducted in all subjects. Comparison of the study group with the control group showed statistically significant differences ( p  < 0.05) on PTA, in Transient otoacoustic emissions (TOAEs) at 1, 2, 3, 4 kHz and in distortion product otoacoustic emissions (DPOAEs) at 357, 499, 704, 1003 Hz. On ABR, statistically significant differences were observed between the groups in wave I ( p  < 0.01) in both ears, wave V ( p  < 0.05) in left ear and on interpeak latency of I-III ( p  < 0.01, p  < 0.05), III-V ( p  < 0.01 in left ear) and I-V ( p  < 0.01, p  < 0.05) in left and right ears respectively. When patients with localized vitiligo were compared with generalized vitiligo, the SNR of TOAEs was highly significant in both ears at 2 KHz ( p  < 0.05), 3 kHz ( p  < 0.01) and 4 kHz ( p  < 0.05). PTA average of 2 KHz, 4 and 8 kHz (PTA2) showed a significant difference ( p  < 0.01) when localized vitiligo was compared to generalized vitiligo. Results support possible auditory and electrophysiological changes in Vitiligo patients along with decreased cochlear function., Competing Interests: Compliance with Ethical Standards Ethical Standards All procedures performed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments. Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study. Conflict of interest No conflict of interest as no funding was received from any agency. Richa Arya, Sanjay Munjal, Naresh Kumar Panda and Davinder Prasad declares that he/she has no conflict of interest.

Apart from their roles as chaperones, heat shock proteins are involved in other vital activities including apoptosis with mammalian Hsp60 being ascribed proapoptotic as well as antiapoptotic roles. Using conditional RNAi or overexpression of Hsp60D, a member of the Hsp60 family in Drosophila melanogaster, we show that the downregulation of this protein blocks caspase-dependent induced apoptosis. GMR-Gal4-driven RNAi for Hsp60D in developing eyes dominantly suppressed cell death caused by expression of Reaper, Hid, or Grim (RHG), the key activators of canonical cell death pathway. Likewise, Hsp60D-RNAi rescued cell death induced by GMR-Gal4-directed expression of full-length and activated DRONC. Overexpression of Hsp60D enhanced cell death induced either by directed expression of RHG or DRONC. However, the downregulation of Hsp60D failed to suppress apoptosis caused by unguarded caspases in DIAP1-RNAi flies. Furthermore, in DIAP1-RNAi background, Hsp60D-RNAi also failed to inhibit apoptosis induced by RHG expression. The Hsp60 and DIAP1 show diffuse and distinct granular overlapping distributions in the photoreceptor cells with the bulk of both proteins being outside the mitochondria. Depletion of either of these proteins disrupts the granular distribution of the other. We suggest that in the absence of Hsp60D, DIAP1 is unable to dissociate from effecter and executioner caspases, which thus remain inactive.