Diagnosing Cochlear “Dead” Regions and Its Importance in the Auditory Rehabilitation Process

SummaryA good audiologic diagnosis is increasingly more important in the practice of audiology, in order to understand patients’ needs for selection and fitting of hearing aid devices.AimShow recent literature that mention the concept of cochlear dead regions, diagnostic strategies and its relevance in the process of selection and fitting of hearing aids.Methodsto carry out a bibliographical survey on dead cochlear regions. Dead cochlear regions were described as regions where inner hair cells and/or adjacent neurons do not work. Therefore, in these regions, the information generated by basilar membrane vibration is not transmitted to the central nervous system. However, a tone at a frequency correspondent to that of dead regions, provided it being sufficiently intense, can be perceived in regions near this zone where inner hair cells and/or nervous fibers still work.ConclusionThe identification of dead regions in the cochlea is used to obtain better results in the process of selection and fitting of hearing aids because the pieces of information generated by inner hair cells to the auditory nerve are important to better identify sounds, mainly those related to speech.