No abstract

Advanced maternal age and short stature were risk factors for giving birth to a girl with TS. More TS girls were born late preterm and were smaller for gestational age than non-TS girls in the general population.

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The aim of this project was to study possible influences of Turner syndrome (TS) karyotype and the number of X chromosomes with intact short arm (p-arm) on dental crown width. Primary and permanent mesio-distal crown width was measured on plaster casts from 112 TS females. The influence on crown width of four karyotypes: 1. monosomy (45,X), 2. mosaic (45,X/46,XX), 3. isochromosome, and 4. other, and the number of intact X chromosomal p-arms were investigated. In comparisons between karyotypes, statistically significant differences were found for isochromosome karyotype maxillary second premolars, canines, laterals, mandibular first premolars, and canines, indicating that this karyotype was the most divergent as shown by the most reduced crown width. When each karyotype group were compared versus controls, all teeth in the isochromosome group were significantly smaller than controls (P < 0.01-0.001). The 45,X/46,XX karyotype expressed fewer and smaller differences from controls, while 45,X individuals seemed to display an intermediate tooth width compared with 45,X/46,XX and isochromosomes. No significant difference in crown width was found comparing the groups with one or two intact X chromosomal p-arms. Both primary and permanent teeth proved to have a significantly smaller crown width in the entire group of TS females compared to healthy females. We conclude that the isochromosome group deviates most from other karyotypes and controls, exhibiting the smallest dental crown width, while individuals with 45,X/46,XX mosaicism seemed to have a less affected crown width. An influence of the number of intact p-arms on crown width could not be demonstrated in this study.

Many well-informed workers do not use hearing protectors (HPs) as they are taught to. Also, there are differences between what workers know, believe, and do. HPs are used whenever ‘‘necessary’’ and taken off when ‘‘the noise levels are low.’’ Workers know when the noise is measured at their workplace. However, when there is no feedback from these measurements, the noise levels will be regarded as being ‘‘all right.’’ Based upon their own noise rating scale, workers create their own norms for HP usage. By regarding their hearing as normal, even when they know their hearing is impaired, there is no incentive to use HP more often. The great disparity between the knowledge of the experts and the way workers use HP shows that the awareness of damage risk is low. Adaptation to noise and to hearing disability is tremendous! Thus, HP usage is determined by the worker’s own noise rating scale, by exchange of opinions between workers, and by their belief of having normal hearing, rather than by the objective noise measurements, information about the need of hearing protection and audiograms. Therefore, the hearing conservation procedures must be renewed according to modern pedagogic principles starting from the perspective of the users, not the experts.

The most common complaint among individuals with hearing impairment is the inability to follow a conversation when several people are talking simultaneously, a noisy listening situation which is completely different from the quiet surrounding of the conventional pure tone audiometry used as basis for the hearing aid settings. The purpose of this report was to present important characteristics of the BeneFit Method (BFM), a procedure that fits the hearing aid under simulated conditions of competing speech and also a clinical pilot evaluation study comparing the BFM to the NAL-R recommendations and also to the Logic procedure, a GN resound proprietary fitting algorithm representing a modern digital hearing aid fitting procedure. Speech recognition scores in noise (SRSN) using monosyllabic words presented under different background noise levels were evaluated on 21 randomly selected subjects with hearing impairment. The subjects were fitted with the same type of hearing aid Danalogic 163D according to the BFM procedure as well as the logic procedure, the latter developed and recommended by the manufacturer. A comparison of the SRSN when using the subjects' current hearing aid fitted according to the NAL-R procedure was also made. Only the BFM procedure provided a significant SRSN improvement compared to the unaided condition (P< 0.01) in a signal/speech-noise level of 75/65 dB corresponding to a normal cocktail party condition. Moreover, patients performed significantly higher SRSN when fitted according to the BFM, than when fitted according the Logic or NAL-R procedures. The BFM procedure, which is based on individual and functional detection of hearing thresholds in noise levels corresponding to a cocktail party condition, can improve SRSN significantly. Hearing aids should be fitted under conditions similar to those when the hearing disability is perceived the most, i.e, in an environment with background noise.