OBJECTIVE To validate a newly designed cochlear implant electrode (TRACE) in the standard monopolar mode and compare it to a patient group implanted with a standard Nucleus Contour cochlear implant electrode. The electrode contacts of the TRACE electrode have the same active surface area for stimulation, but the position in the scala tympani is different from that of the Nucleus Contour electro...

The assessment of quality of life in patients with laryngeal cancer treated by total laryngectomy, represents a highly useful tool for providing the understanding about the major difficulties of these patients and their priorities, before and after the surgical treatment, thus favouring a multidisciplinary assistance that is efficient, integral and optimized to health. The present review demons...

The tracheoesophageal voice prosthesis (TEP) has seen wide success in thousands of patients who lost their ability to speak after a total laryngectomy. The device is small, sterile, and is operated by blocking the stoma to redirect air into the esophagus, allowing discernible speech. However, the physical blocking of the stoma can eventually become inconvenient for frequent speakers and perhaps...

OBJECTIVES: There is a growing literature indicating that organizational and individual worker-level factors affect decisions about whether or not empirically supported treatments (ESTs) are adopted within health care agencies. The purpose of this pilot study is to further investigate and measure worker's attitudes within a community organization. METHOD: A small organization participated in t...

OBJECTIVE The aim was to assess articulation and speech intelligibility over time in a group of cochlear implant users implanted at 8 yr or over. The hypothesis was that the postoperative speech production performance would be greater than the preoperative performance. DESIGN A test of intelligibility using sentences and an articulation test measuring non-imitative elicited speech were admini...

PURPOSE The present study was aimed to evaluate the influence of implant contact ratio and stiffness of implant-surrounding materials on the resonance frequency analysis (RFA) values. MATERIALS AND METHODS Seventy resin blocks that had the different amounts (100, 50, 30, 15%) of resin-implant contact (RIC) were fabricated. Ten silicone putty blocks with 100% silicone-implant contact were also...

Cobalt complexes supported on silica and Merrifield resin are effective mediators for the controlled radical polymerization of vinyl acetate.

Cost utility analysis is a method of cost-effectiveness analysis which provides results in terms of cost per quality-adjusted life-year (QALY). Cost utility for the multichannel cochlear implant was calculated using Ontario Health Utilities Index data from 229 Nucleus 22-channel implant users and 32 cochlear implant candidates awaiting surgery. The health utility of the implanted group was grea...

This study aimed to quantify outcomes in a group of patients who were implanted with an Oticon Medical Neurelec (Vallauris, France) cochlear implant system, the Digisonic(®) SP/Saphyr(®) Neo. Ten participants took part in this preliminary study. Their speech perception capacities were evaluated at 3, 6, and 12-months after cochlear implant activation and compared to pre-implantation scores and ...