80% of children will suffer at least 1 episode of Otitis Media by the time they reach school and 60% of these children will have an associated hearing loss. Ms Chiam challenged the existing protocol of watching and waiting for the hearing loss to spontaneously resolve or treat the hearing loss surgically with insertion of grommets. She has shown a more active approach may get better results. She has been trialling Eustachian Tube exercises which show startling improvements. 83% of children showed a return to normal hearing in both ears over a 6 week period.
Ms Chiam, says that early development is vital in kids.80% of children will suffer at least 1 episode of Otitis Media by the time they reach school and 60% of these children will have an associated hearing loss. Ms Chiam challenged the existing protocol of watching and waiting for the hearing loss to spontaneously resolve or treat the hearing loss surgically with insertion of grommets. She has shown a more active approach may get better results. She has been trialling Eustachian Tube exercises which show startling improvements. 83% of children showed a return to normal hearing in both ears over a 6 week period. . Unfortunately, it is most common during a child’s early learning years. Hearing well is particularly important for development of language and continuing education. Prolonged hearing loss can have impacts on a childs ability to process words and separate out different sounds. So, its important to identify it quickly and help it to resolve as fast as we can.
Adding a non surgical option to our current methods helps kids to manage their own hearing loss at home as well as to continue a positive relationship with water. When a child has grommets inserted we instruct them to keep their ears dry and to guard against water in their ears. Our kids and families live by the beach. Its important that we recognise how important the water is in the life of our kids and parents. It was when one mother said to me, “I feel anxious when any of my kids are near the water.” that I was moved to find another option and to do the research. Before that, I didn’t realise how much pressure open water puts on parents and families. We are told that it only takes a few seconds for a kid to drown, and this is echoed in the WHO 2016 statistics, “Every year, 30 kids under the age of 5 drown in Australia alone”.
In actual fact when I investigated at a deeper level, i found our current protocols are based on results obtained from Indigenous children in central Australia. However 83% of the Australian population live within 50Km of the coastline and only 3% of our population is Indigenous. Kids living on the coast have services available to support them, as well as the risk open water poses to a child under 5. A more active approach could also reduce the need for surgical intervention, reduce the time a child is disadvantaged by a hearing loss for better learning and development outcomes and empower parents and families with a more patient centred care model.
Author
Alison Chiam is Principal Audiologist with the Jervis Bay Hearing Centre. She has worked in both public and private health systems and as Paediatric and Adult Specialist with Australian Hearing before moving into private practice. She has written for national and international publications. Her special interest is in Adult hearing rehabilitation.
