Book Description

Hyperacusis and Disorders of Sound Intolerance: Clinical and Research Perspectivesis a professional resource for audiology practitioners involved in the clinical management of patients who have sound tolerance concerns. The text covers emerging assessment and intervention strategies associated with hyperacusis, disorders of pitch perception, and other unusual processing deficits of the auditory system. In order to illustrate the patients' perspectives and experiences with disorders of auditory processing, cases are included throughout. This collection of basic science findings, diagnostic strategies and tools, evidence-based clinical research, and case reports provides practitioners with avenues for supporting patient management and coping. It combines new developments in the understanding of auditory mechanisms with the clinical tools developed to manage the effects such disorders exert in daily life. Topics addressed include unusual clinical findings and features that influence a patient's auditory processing such as their perceptual accuracy, recognition abilities, and satisfaction with the perception of sound. Hyperacusis is covered with respect to its effects, its relation to psychological disorders, and its management. Hyperacusis is often linked to trauma or closed head injury, and the text also considers the management of patients with traumatic brain injury as an opportunity to illustrate the effectiveness of interprofessional care in such cases. Interventions such as cognitive behavioral therapy, desensitization training, and hearing aid use are reported in a way that enhances clinicians' ability to weave such strategies into their own work or into their referral system. Hyperacusis and Disorders of Sound Intolerance illuminates increasingly observed auditory-related disorders that challenge students, clinicians, physicians, and patients. The text elucidates and reinforces audiologists' contributions to polytrauma and interprofessional care teams and provides clear definitions, delineation of mechanisms, and intervention options for auditory disorders.