Frequency and Severity of Auditory Impairment in Children with Cerebral Palsy in a Selected Tertiary Health Care Centre

Abstract

Cerebral palsy is the most common chronic motor disorder in children and frequently associated with sensorineural pathology. Deafness is very important public health concern. Because it determines long-term life span disability in individuals, decrease their quality of life. To observe the rate of occurrence of hearing impairment in children with cerebral palsy (CP) and to assess the severity of hearing impairment children with CP and correlate the auditory impairment with different types of CP were aim of the study. Total 50 children with Cerebral Palsy were taken. A structured questionnaire was filled up including history of patient and important variables related to hearing status like family history of deafness, consanguinity, antenatal history, preterm LBW, perinatal asphyxia, kernicterus, neonatal septicemia, neonatal seizure and meningitis were included in study. Physical examination and neurological examination like hearing, vision, motor, cognitive, speech delay were assessed. In this study, among the 50 children with CP, Tympanometry showed that negative middle ear pressure was 32% in spastic quadriplegia (SQ), 24% in spastic hemiplegia (SH), 16% in spastic diplegia (SD) and 24% in mixed type. Eustachian tube dysfunction was 62.5% in spastic hemiplegia. Secretory otitis media was 36.4% in spastic quadriplegia. Auditory brain stem response revealed severe sensorineural hearing loss was 8% in spastic quadriplegic type. Moderate sensorineural hearing loss was 2% in spastic hemiplegia group. Hearing loss was frequent in children with Cerebral Palsy. Spastic Quadriplegic cerebral palsy patients had the maximum incidence of hearing impairment.