Wireless inertial measurement unit (IMU)-based posturography.

BACKGROUND: Classical posturography techniques have been recently enhanced by the use of different motion tracking devices, but for technical reasons they are not used to track directly the body spatial position of a subject. OBJECTIVE: To describe and clinically evaluate a wireless inertial measurement unit-based mobile system to track body position changes. METHODS: The developed system used a calculus transformation method using the acceleration data corrected by Kalman and Butterworth filters to output position data. A prospective non-randomized clinical study involving 15 healthy subjects was performed to evaluate the agreement between the confidence ellipse areas synchronously measured by the new developed system and a classical posturography system while performing a modified clinical test of sensory interaction in balance. RESULTS: The overall intra-class correlation index was 0.93 (CI 0.89, 0.96). Grouped by conditions, under conditions 1-4, Pearson's correlation was 0.604, 0.78, 0.882, and 0.81, respectively. CONCLUSION: The developed wireless inertial measurement unit-based posturography system was valid for tracking the sway variances in normal subjects under habitual clinical testing conditions. Further studies are needed to validate this system on patients and also under other posture conditions.

Phone Speech Recognition Improvement in Noisy Environment: Use of a Bluetooth Accessory.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate speech understanding in noise and patient satisfaction using the new Cochlear Wireless Phone Clip device. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Twenty-nine experienced cochlear implant (CI) users (>6 months usage) were situated in a soundproof room where a 65 dB SPL Spanish cocktail noise was generated continuously from 4 loudspeakers. Lists of disyllabic words were presented through the clinic landline telephone to the patients. Patients were tested first holding the phone and then with the Cochlear Phone Clip© paired to the CP910 using various mixing ratios (2:1, 4:1, and Phone Clip© only). RESULTS: Statistically significant (P < .001) improvement of speech recognition performance was found in cell phone usage by wireless transmission and also when using this new device. Kepler questionnaire results showed that before using Phone Clip in everyday life, 55.2% of patients described themselves highly or greatly affected by their deafness for telephone use and 80% moderately to greatly affected. Kim questionnaire results showed statistically significant differences (P < .001) in the subjective satisfaction of the Bluetooth-implemented CI compared to the conventional mode for sound quality, noise interference, and sound accuracy. CONCLUSIONS: The wireless Phone Clip© device helps implanted people to improve subjective and objective speech recognition performance through the phone in noisy environments.

[Surgical implantation of the fully implantable middle-ear hearing device]. / Cirugía del implante de oído medio totalmente implantable.

The new fully implantable middle ear device (CARINA) is useful in sensorineural, conductive and mixed hearing loss. Surgical implantation of this device in the different types of hearing loss is similar in some aspects but differs in others. Consequently, we describe the surgical procedure in sensorineural and in conductive hearing loss separately.

Cirugía del implante de oído medio totalmente implantable / Surgical implantation of the fully implantable middle-ear hearing device

El nuevo dispositivo totalmente implantable de oído medio llamado Carina es útil en pérdidas neurosensoriales, de transmisión y mixtas. Aunque la cirugía es bastante similar en algunos puntos, en otros difiere, por lo que describiremos separadamente la cirugía en pérdidas neurosensoriales y en perdidas de transmisión (AU)

The new fully implantable middle ear device (CARINA) is useful in sensorineural, conductive and mixed hearing loss. Surgical implantation of this device in the different types of hearing loss is similar in some aspects but differs in others. Consequently, we describe the surgical procedure in sensorineural and in conductive hearing loss separately (AU)