Neurootology

Audiology – Vestibulometry – Olfactometry

There is a variety of reasons for auditory defects, ringing in the ears or vertigo as well as an impaired sense of taste and smell. In any case you should see a doctor without delay to determine the cause with reasonable certainty.

In the HNO Klinik am Taunus hearing impairments, vestibular disorders and vertigo can be diagnosed and treated with utmost accuracy thanks to the latest clinical and apparatus-based examination methods like video-aided analyses of the oculovestibular motor skills or computer-aided measurements of brainstem auditory evoked potentials.

Severe vertigo often has a benign cause that can be cured quickly and easily. For example, if someone suffers from the most common form of vertigo, the canalolithiasis (the so-called benign positional vertigo), the ENT specialist mobilises the patient involving the entire body keeping the head under manual control in a certain sequence of movements subject to prior analysis. This treatment triggers any displaced microcrystals in the semicircular canals to move back to the correct originating point of the vestibular system – a therapy which cures 9 out of 10 patients in only 1 – 2 sessions.

Neurootology includes the following sections:

Audiology

Audiology defines examinations of the hearing respectively the clarification of the cause of hearing impairments like hearing loss, deafness, ringing in the ears (tinnitus).

By means of specific differential audiological test methods we are able to diagnose a variety of illnesses ranging from diseases of the middle ear (like e.g. cholesteatoma or stapes fixation) and inner ear diseases (acute hearing loss or age-related hearing loss) to diseases of the auditory nerv (acoustic neuroma).

Audiological diagnostic range of services:

  • Pure tone and speech audiometry
  • Supra-threshold diagnostics
  • Tympanometry and middle ear reflex measurements
  • Tinnitus analysis
  • Measurement of otoacoustic emissions
  • Measurement of auditively in the brainstem evoked potentials (BERA)

Vestibulometry

Vestibulometry designates the examination of the balance function if patients suffer from dizziness like rotary or staggering vertigo, postural instability or motion sickness (e.g. travel sickness).

The otoneurological vestibular function test is initially aimed at the detection of a disorder of the vestibular organ in the labyrinth of the inner ear, meaning a peripheral vestibular disorder. Also included are symptoms like otolith dizziness, the acute vestibular failure, phobic postural vertigo, Morbus Meniere and so on.

In addition to a thorough dizziness history taking, our range of services includes various clinical Frenzel goggles tests, neurologic examinations of the vestibulo-spinal function as well as vestibulo-ocular reflex tests, video-oculography (VOG) resp. caloric testing by means of computer nystagmography.

Olfactometry / Gustometry

These expressions define the examinations of smell and taste disorders like loss of smell or taste or misperceptions, so-called missmell or mistaste.

Patients who suffer from a smell or taste disorder will undergo primary endoscopic examination to rule out any mechanically conductive smell disorder (e.g. by obstructing adenoids). Subsequently, there is a precise olfactory and gustometry test with the aid of sniffin-sticks to analyse sensory smell and / or taste disorders.