Presbycusis and Fitness to Fly

BACKGROUND: When a pilot is referred for presbycusis, his flight fitness may be questionable. The objective of this retrospective study was to describe a case series of presbycusis in a pilot population and to discuss the decisions about their flight waivers.METHODS: There were 19 pilots who were referred to the ENT-Head and Neck Surgery Department of the National Pilot Expertise Center. Their medical files were retrospectively examined.RESULTS: Of the 19 patients, 5 did not obtain flight fitness waivers. Among the 14 who received waivers, 7 had no restrictions on their flight fitness.DISCUSSION: Flight fitness was based on the maximum percentage of speech recognition and the slope of the curve for speech recognition in speech audiometry in noise and the follow-up of these findings. The results made it possible to determine a patient’s fitness to fly with a waiver, which may be associated with restrictions. In our series, only 5 pilots out of 19 did not obtain a flight fitness waiver. The few published studies on the resumption of flight for patients who had presbycusis and our experience in France with similar waivers in commercial and military aviation suggest that under certain conditions and after relevant cochlear assessment, presbycusis may allow for a safe pursuit of aviation activity.Ballivet de Régloix S, Genestier L, Maurin O, Marty S, Crambert A, Pons Y. Presbycusis and fitness to fly. Aerosp Med Hum Perform. 2020; 91(5):403–408.

Diagnosing and Screening in a Minority Language: A Validation Study

Purpose The Turkish Digit Triplet Test for hearing self-screening purposes and the Turkish Matrix Test (TURMatrix) for follow-up hearing diagnostics offer an automated closed-set response format where patients respond by choosing from response alternatives. Their applicability for testing Turkish-speaking patients in their native language by German audiologists with different Turkish language skills was investigated. Method Tests were composed of spoken numbers (Turkish Digit Triplet Test) or sentences (TURMatrix). For 49 participants differing in hearing ability, speech reception thresholds (SRTs) in noise and quiet were obtained, for the TURMatrix with either the open- or closed-set response format, by audiologists with and without Turkish language skills, respectively. Results SRTs of both tests correlate closely with each other as well as with hearing ability, but not as closely as individual SRTs in quiet with hearing ability. SRTs in noise of listeners with normal hearing were about 0.7 dB lower for the closed-set than for the open-set response format. Conclusions The 2 tests yield comparable results and are applicable to professionals without suitable language skills. For the closed-set response format of the TURMatrix, literacy is crucial and supplemental (visual) cues improve performance. Speech audiometry in noise should assess suprathreshold processing deficits independently from language proficiency in the majority language.