Article

Vast numbers of blast-injured Operation Iraqi Freedom/Operation Enduring
Freedom/Operation New Dawn personnel report postconcussive symptoms that include
headache, dizziness, poor memory, and difficulty concentrating. In addition, many
report hearing problems, such as difficulty understanding speech in noise, yet
have no measureable peripheral auditory deficits. In this article, self-report
and performance-based measures were used to assess 99 blast-exposed Veterans. All
participants reported auditory problems in difficult listening situations but had
clinically normal hearing. Participants' scores on self-report questionnaires of
auditory difficulties were more similar to scores of older individuals with
hearing impairment than to those of younger individuals with normal hearing.
Participants showed deficits relative to published normative data on a number of
performance-based tests that have demonstrated sensitivity to auditory processing
deficits. There were several measures on which more than the expected number of
participants (15.9%) performed one or more standard deviations below the mean.
These were assessments of speech understanding in noise, binaural processing,
temporal resolution, and speech segregation. Performance was not universally
poor, with approximately 53% of participants performing abnormally on between 3
and 6 of the 10 measures. We concluded that participants exhibited task-specific
deficits that add to the evidence suggesting that blast injury results in damage
to the central auditory system. CLINICAL TRIALS REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov;
Approaches to Auditory Rehabilitation for Mild Traumatic Brain Injury (mTBI);
NCT00930774;
https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT00930774?term=NCT00930774&rank=1.

Langue : ANGLAIS