Cortical Deafness - A Clinical, Audiological, Electrophysiological, Radiological And Follow Up Study

Abstract

Cortical deafness occurs following lesions of the Heshcl's gyri or the subcortical auditory pathways. Stroke is the commonest etiology. The clinical, audiological, electrophysiological and radiological observations of a patient with cortical deafness secondary to ischemic stroke involving bilateral Heschl's gyri, with long term follow up is being reported. He had profound degree of hearing loss, poor auditory verbal comprehension, poor auditory repetition, inability to take dictation and poor response to other non-linguistic sounds despite having adequate hearing assessed by objective audiological tests. He was advised to adopt speech reading techniques and resort to gestural and written modalities to augment his communication skills. He has shown only a marginal improvement over the last six years.