Seventh Observation 10-17-07

Today, a male in his late 20s came into the clinic. The client participated in the hearing screenings by the 1yr speech grads. The client's results came back normal, but he came into the clinic to have an evaluation regardless. The sessions began with a case hx of the client. The case case hx revealed the client hunted. The client said he did not use protection, but I'm not sure if that included target shooting also. Hunting without ear protection is reasonable, but target practice without protection is not. With hunting, very few shots are taken. While target shooting, many shots are fired. Next, video otoscopy was used to view the EAC and TM. EACs showed acceptable amounts of cerumen, but small amounts of blood from the client using cotton swabs. Tympanometry showed a normal curve for the client's right ear, but a very slightly shifted curve to the left. The clinician said it was still normal. The final step of the battery was puretone audiometry. The client's thresholds all fell within normal limits. Before the client left, the clinician showed and explained the audiogram to the client.

I found a little article about using leupeptin to prevent hearing loss. In summary, they injected chinchillas with leupeptin in one cochlea but left the opther alone. Then, they exposed the chinchillas to 48 hours of 100dB and 105dB of noise. The chinchillas' injected cochleas were left relatively undamaged while the other was nearly destroyed.

All ears: potential help for noise-induced hearing loss. (1999). Enironmental Health Perspectives, 107 (9), A448-A449. Retrieved October 19, 2007, from JSTOR database.