The localization of hearing impairment in athetoids.

Abstract

IntroductionThe occurrence of hearing loss associated with athetosis has been known for some time. It has been demonstrated that the hearing impairment is of the perceptive type. The pathophysiology responsible for the hearing deficiency has been a subject of conjecture, and the site of the lesion has been a source of some speculation. The preponderance of opinion concerning this latter point seems to have been in favor of its being a retrocochlear involvement.The preponderance of opinion concerning the perceptive type of hearing loss found in athetoids is that it is due to retrocochlear damage, probably as a concomitant to the central system damage which caused their physical disability. If this is so, then such athetoids might be expected to respond in atypical ways to a battery of audiologic tests which are sensitive to the detection of perceptive type hearing loss with cochlear involvement.Ten Norwegian athetoids, 11 to 28 years of age, with physical involvement which ranged from slight to severe, and...