Auditory discomfort threshold survey in patients with auditory hypersensitivity

Abstract

Introduction: On the clinical practice, we receive many patients reporting a normal hearing, but complaining of discomfort with sounds, which for the majority of the people are perfectly bearable. The majority of these patients do not have a diagnosis for this problem. The purpose of this paper is to determine the findings of hearing dynamic range of a group of patients with complaints of hearing hypersensitiveness compared to a control group. Material and method: Seventeen patients, ranging from 20 to 45 years old, were evaluated and distributed into two groups: #1 – nine patients with complaints of hearing hypersensitiveness to environment sounds; #2 – eight patients without any hearing complaints. It was performed pure tone audiometry in order to determine the minimum threshold for frequencies from 250 to 8000 Hz and maximum discomfort levels from 500 to 4000 Hz. The results of the discomfort levels were subtracted from the minimal thresholds, which resulted in the dynamic range for each frequency. Then, it was found the average dynamic range for each ear, or The Johnson Quotient (Hyperacusis Dynamic Range – JHQ). The two groups were compared. Results: It was observed significant statistical differences on the dynamic range between the groups; between 95 to 110 dB SL in the control group and between 50 to 90 dB SL on the complaining group. Conclusion: Even if the level discomfort is a subjective evaluation method, we should perform it every time there is a patient’s complaint to avoid unnecessary exposure to loud sounds during the audiological evaluation.