VGH & UBC Hospital Foundation match Rotary donation to Neuro-Otology Clinic
“The question, Mr. Fratti, is whether Cary Agos hurt lemons busing the important tree mills of honeycuts.”
– From CBS’s “The Good Wife”
Huh, you say?
While that sentence may not make sense to most people, it’s a perfect example of what someone with Auditory Processing Disorder (APD) might hear during a conversation. In the case of “The Good Wife”, the juror who heard this ended up being excused from the trial because of his APD.
Now, thanks to a $15,000 donation from the Rotary Hearing Foundation – matched dollar for dollar by our own VGH & UBC Hospital Foundation – the VGH Neuro-Otology Clinic will be able to access cutting-edge hearing technology and training programs for patients with auditory processing disorders. This will make VGH the first hospital in the Lower Mainland to provide both a comprehensive assessment and treatment program for people with APD.
The combined donation of $30,000 will help buy personal FM systems and fund training programs, as well as enable the neuro-otology group to test different technologies from various manufacturers.
“These patients can have normal or near-normal hearing for both ears, but they have various degrees of communication abilities,” Dr. Li Qi, audiology practice lead at VGH, explains. “For instance, they have troubles following a conversation with a group of people, memorizing information learned by listening, or they often need words or sentences repeated.”
Dr. Qi says assessment and treatment for people with APD is extremely limited in the Lower Mainland because it is a newly discovered disorder, making it unfamiliar to many clinicians and physicians. Patients with APD can’t process sound in the same way others do because the brain and the ears don’t fully coordinate with one another. This leads to difficulties in recognizing and interpreting sounds, especially speech signals with background noise.
In order to make an accurate and reliable diagnosis, comprehensive training and specialized testing is needed — and providing treatment to these patients is even more complicated. In fact, audiologists at VGH completed a two-year pilot project about APD assessment before implementing it in their practice.
According to various studies, APD is estimated to occur in five to 10 per cent of normal-hearing adults, and for people who’ve been in a motor vehicle accident, that number jumps to approximately 50 per cent. “Hearing has such a profound impact on how we interact with others, our work and overall quality of life,” says Dr. Qi. “We know that people with unmanaged hearing disorders can become withdrawn and socially isolated, which can lead to depression or other illnesses. As audiologists, there’s nothing better than a patient’s gratitude when we’re able to successfully help them with their hearing loss.”
The Rotary Hearing Foundation (RHF) was established in 1988 and through its annual Bike-A-Thon raises money to support the deaf and hard of hearing in B.C. Mr. Jack Zaleski, president of RHF, indicated that one of the missions of RHF is to bring back the sound of life. In the past, RHF has contributed over $1.8 million to hearing health care.
This year’s Bike-A-Thon will take place on July 12, 2015.