Effect of Real-Ear Adjusted Stimuli on Vestibular Evoked Myogenic Potential Variability in Children and Young Adults.
Erin E Hernon, Jessie N Patterson, Denis Fitzpatrick and 1 others
PMID 36648319WHAT IT FOUND
Adjusting VEMP stimulus levels using real-ear-to-coupler difference values did not reduce variability in cervical or ocular VEMP amplitudes or asymmetry ratios in children and young adults.
Both ear canal volume and RECD adjustments effectively protected against unsafe noise exposure.
Key findings
01Using RECD-adjusted stimuli did not significantly reduce inter-subject or intra-subject variability in cervical VEMP amplitudes or asymmetry ratios.
02RECD-adjusted stimuli also failed to significantly reduce variability in ocular VEMP amplitudes or asymmetry ratios.
03Both traditional ECV-based adjustments and RECD-based adjustments were effective in protecting participants from unsafe noise exposure levels during VEMP testing.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The study included only typically developing participants, so results may not apply to patients with vestibular or auditory pathology. The sample size of 31 participants is relatively small, which may limit the ability to detect subtle differences in variability between the adjustment methods. The study focused on 500 Hz tone bursts; findings may not generalize to other stimulus frequencies or types. Probe tube insertion depth varied slightly between measurements, which could introduce minor acoustic variability.
Declared interests
The research was supported by the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (N.I.H., Extramural). No other conflicts of interest were declared.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that RECD adjustments are useless for all aspects of VEMP testing. While they did not reduce amplitude variability, they were effective in controlling sound exposure levels, which is critical for patient safety in pediatric populations.