[tri-med] Re: karen, about ABR test

----- Original Message -----
From: "Michelle Wilson"
>>Why should they
> put her under when the results may not be accurate due to the small canals?

I truly understand your concern about the sedation, and totally respect the 
fact that its your choice sweet. I was just concerned
that you weren't getting accurate information.

Alex had many ABR's but he was never sedated for them because of the risk. 
Instead we scheduled the ABR's so that he slept through
them. It meant that we often only got one ear done at a time but that was a 
small price to pay for no sedation.

Why wouldn't the ABR's be accurate because of the small ear canals? Faren hears 
through those same small ear canals and so the test
would just be telling you what she hears, which is what they are after. An ABR 
cannot differentiate between a neural and a
conductive hearing loss anyway.

The measuring for an ABR are electrodes placed on the head not in the ear. And 
to "give" her the sound they use headphones.

OAE's wouldn't be possible because of the small canals, and it also would be 
hard to rule out fluid at the time of the test.

Faren is now playing isn't she? Why can't they try getting her ready to do a 
VROA?? This is a behavioural response test so no
sedation is ever even considered.

>>I don't know why they couldn't do the ABR then.

Depends if they had access to the equipment in the ER.

>>it took a long time for it to wear off and
> her sats(?) were only in the 80's.  I think they were just being really
> precaucious cause of her t18.  Doesn't bother me none.

I do truly understand your caution sweet - I HATE anaesthetics with Alex. 
Nothing scares me more.

>>She had an ABR when
> she was in the NICU and her right ear was fine, but her left ear supposively
> had a defecit.

Unfortunately they are finding that neonatal ABR's are not all that 
reliable..........

>>This cannot be considered valid though because of her tiny
> tiny canals.

Again I dont understand why??? Where is our resident audiologist????

> The other tests would not be good for her cause she most likely would not
> respond to sounds on command.

A good audiologist can do a VROA without the child responding on command. Alex 
was very consistent with his VROA's based on visual
stimuli (puppets). He didn't have to respond on command per sa. Whenever they 
played a sound the puppet (which was out of his line
of sight) would dance. It took a few months of "conditioning" (for want of a 
better word) for him to get the idea though.

Before that they used a variety of special noisemaker toys. Bells, whistles, 
drums etc that all had different frequencies. All he
had to do was respond in any way to the noise. eg stop what he was doing, 
turning slightly to see where it was coming from, even
changing the pattern of his body movements. These gave us fairly good results 
and let us know that he needed an ABR.
Alex's had a huge jump in development once he was aided.

If winter comes, can spring be far behind?
-- Percy Bysshe Shelley

Keep Looking for Rainbows!!!
Karen, Mum to Alex (7, T-18 mosaic)
Sydney, Australia
http://members.optushome.com.au/karens
http://www.trisomyonline.org

                  Building ___ooOOoo__ Rainbows
                       www.trisomyonline.org
                  Families Helping Families On-line

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