Assessment of Saccular Function in Children With Sensorineural Hearing Loss

Abstract

The impairment of saccular function, indicated by the abnormal findings in the vestibular evoked myogenic potential, is often associated with sensorineural hearing loss in the pediatric population. Although saccular dysfunction may create a vestibular deficit, its manifestations can vary and be easily overlooked in children. Considering the high percentage of abnormal findings in our study, we recommend that deaf and hard-of-hearing children undergo vestibular evaluation. Vestibular evoked myogenic potential testing is an easy and reliable procedure to evaluate saccular function in children.

The effect of saccular function on static balance ability of profound hearing-impaired children

“…It is also worthy of note that the response threshold was remarkably lower in the test group than in the control one. These results chime in with those reported by the Zhou et al [5] study on children with severe-to-profound hearing loss. The VEMP results by themselves can verify the deficit in the saccular function in the hearingimpaired children; be that as it may, using these results in conjunction with the results of other tests performed in our study can provide better judgment on the saccular function of hearingimpaired children.…”

“…The cochlea and vestibule are anatomically and functionally related with each other and are the sensory receptors of the auditory and vestibular systems, respectively; any dysfunction of each or both of them may result in vestibular disorder and subsequent deficit in balance function [2][3][4][5][6]. From the point of view of developmental studies, young children in their efforts to maintain their postural stability tend to rely on visual sense and begin to gradually use somatosensory and vestibular inputs, through which between 7 and 10 years of age, responses similar to those of adults will be observed [3,[5][6][7].…”

“…Several studies have thus far been conducted on adults using electronystagmography (ENG) and caloric tests; these tests are, however, too difficult to use for children and are not routinely conducted in clinical practice [5,8,9]. Vestibular evoked myogenic potential (VEMP) and acoustically evoked short latency negative response (ASNR) are two new easy-to-use tests which, in recent studies, have been utilized to assess the vestibular function in children.…”

Test–retest reliability of the assessment of postural stability in typically developing children and in hearing impaired children

“…Because the labyrinth and the cochlea are closely related both anatomically and developmentally, a related vestibular deficit is a potential finding when the hearing mechanism is impaired [5][6][7]. Although hearing impaired children with normal vestibular function and no other motor or visual co-morbidity can show motor development and balance comparable to typically developing children, hearing impaired children are reported as having a high incidence of balance disorders [8][9][10][11].…”

Hearing-impaired young people – a physician’s guide

“…[20][21][22][23][24][25] This is under recognised. These children have delayed motor skills or may be described as 'clumsy'.…”