Hearing Loss in Stroke Cases: A Literature Review

Abstract

Stroke is the most common cause of neurological disability (MacDonald, Cockerell, Sander, & Shorvon, 2000) and about 1 in 3 stroke life survivors are functionally reliant on it after one year (Murray and Lopez 1996). The majority of stroke survivors need restoration (MacDonald et al., 2000), requiring them to be adequately informed of the prognosis, nature, and proposed treatment of their illness. Hearing plays an important role in effective communication between healthcare professionals and patients (Bensing, 2000), therefore hearing loss may restrict contribution in recuperation programs, leading to an inferior level of bodily performance (Landi et al., 2006). Both hemorrhagic and ischemic strokes may interrupt all stages of the hearing path and lead to hearing shortages that start acutely previously, throughout, or shortly after the occurrence of the stroke. Yet, hearing shortfalls after stroke have not been as lengthily investigated as visual shortfalls, possibly due to the potentially “invisible” nature of this loss compared to more noticeable symptoms (e.g., dysphasia or motor loss). Hearing impairment after stroke may be a vital unmet need for stroke patients and additional research into patterns, detection, prevalence, and treatment are compulsory. In SCA infarction, the ischemic lesion happens in the area where threads from the nucleus have already traversed, and therefore sensory hearing impairment is noticed in the contralateral sideways. There is clear evidence that PICA and AICA territory strokes may result in mixed cochlear/retro­ cochlear, and less frequently retro cochlear-only patterns of hearing impairment (H. Lee et al., 2002). Hearing impairment for both AICA and PICA infarcts is mostly one-sided. Stroke may affect all levels of the auditory pathway and lead to hearing reception and/or perception deficits. Sudden-onset hearing loss after stroke of the vertebra-basilar territory and/or low brainstem is one of the less frequent neurologic impairments, while cortical or central deafness is even rarer. However, studies of populations with stroke indicate that hearing loss is very common, while in the general population, a past history of stroke increases the likelihood of having hearing loss. Auditory-processing deficits after stroke are less well studied than hearing loss and possibly under documented. Auditory dysfunction may impact on patient communication and may even predict long-term patient outcome after stroke. Despite this, clinical guidelines for auditory assessments after stroke are rudimentary. This study reviews the available information of auditory function in patients with stroke. On the basis of the information available, it is suggested that screening the patient's hearing before the patient leaves the stroke ward with a short test and a minimum set of hearing-related questions and subsequently screening the patient's hearing needs with targeted questions at the chronic stage of stroke may be a cost-effective bare minimum assessment approach to addressing the hearing needs of this complex population.