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Gagan Bajaj , Sujay Puthuchery , Jayashree Bhat , Rajesh Ranjan

Abstract

There is dearth of literature targeting the behavioral correlates to central auditory processing among individuals with Diabetes. As communication being crucial aspect of human existence and losing the skill to effectively communicate adversely affects quality of life (QoL).So the present study was undertaken with the aim to examine the effect of type II Diabetes on speech perception in noise. A total of 80 subjects equally divided in to experimental and control group participated in this research. Experimental group consisted of 40 individuals with  Diabetes (TYPE II) diagnosed for minimum five years between the age range of 28 – 60 years, with a mean age of 44years with equal gender representation. The effect of Diabetes on speech perception abilities among individuals with greater than 5 years of diabetic age, results revels a statistically significant difference between both the groups with p value < 0.01 for speech perception task and also there was association between the age of diabetes and the quick SIN scores for individuals with diabetes. We hypothesize that reduced sensory processing ability which could be due to involvement of various structures of central nervous system might have contributed to poor speech understanding abilities in diabetics individuals.

Keywords

Type II diabetics, Speech perception in noise, Hearing loss, Hyperglycemia

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Rashmi Ananth Pai , Jayashree Bhat

Abstract

Background Crossed Aphasia (CA) which is secondary to single neurological event localized in the right hemisphere of right dextrals results in a variety of communication disorders (Murdoch, 1990). However owing to the diversity of the disorder, it has always been a controversial issue in research. Kirshner et al (2009) reported that syndromes from the left hemisphere injury in a left dextrals may be milder or more selective than those of right.
Objective In view of the existing knowledge, the profiling of communication behavior secondary to right middle cerebral artery infarct would be of interest and so the present study focuses on the same.
Method This study followed a single case study design. A 50 years old male with a complaint of communication problem following traumatic brain injury 3 months ago was considered for the study. A detailed communication assessment of receptive and expressive language; speech production: deglutition and secondary language skills was carried out using clinical observation and standardized tests.
Results and Discussion The client communication profile revealed preserved receptive language as compared to expressive language. Bakaret et al (1996) also reported severe global aphasia and Broca's aphasia following CA. As for the expressive difficulties, Zangwiil (1979) hypothesied that the right hemisphere can take over some aspects of language in bilinguals and multilinguals because the left hemisphere is overloaded. In our client, naming and repetitions skills were both affected in contrast with Geraldine et al's (2009) observation of less errors in repetition in CA. Moreover automatized speech and right hemispheric skills were well preserved. Totlidede et al's (2011) findings differed from that of ours with fluctuating speech rate and intermittent word-finding pauses along with rare phonological errors in CA. In line with their observation, We also observed adequate secondary language skills. Voice and deglutition function: were normal. Laeknabladid (2009) observed prosodic difficulties and phonological problems in his clients. These observations tempt us to consider CA as a syndrome rather than a unified disorder.
Conclusion It is concluded from our study that the communication errors in crossed aphasia cannot be generalized, and that individual differences are generally expected. So, it is mandatory to profile the communication errors after administering detailed language, speech and swallowing patterns which would intern direct appropriate intervention plan.

Keywords

Crossed Aphasia (CA)

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