NCRAR Conferences

The NCRAR hosts an international conference every two years in Portland, Oregon, bringing together clinical researchers and practicing audiologists in an interactive format with the goal of translating research findings into practice.

The 5th NCRAR biennial conference and pre-conference workshop took place October 12-14, 2011 in Portland, Oregon.  The pre-conference workshop “Patient-Centered Audiologic Rehabilitation” was attended by about 65 clinicians, scientists, and educators, while the main conference “Expanding our Horizons: Medical Conditions and Audiology” had about 155 attendees.  

Pre-Conference Workshop: The workshop was run by Sue Erdman, Jean-Pierre Gagne, Elizabeth Mauze, David Wark and Mary Beth Jennings. They provided a superb description of the importance of patient-centered Audiologic Rehabilitation (AR), and provided an overview of the World Health Organization’s International Classification (ICF) of Functioning, Disability and Health, ideas for how to incorporate patient-centered AR into clinical practice, some excellent ideas for Au.D. student projects focusing on AR and a library consisting of AR publications. 

Conference: The main conference began with a marvelous keynote address by Karen Cruickshanks. She engaged the audience with her description of epidemiological evidence suggesting that hearing loss may signal risk for negative psychological impacts and that there are unmet needs for hearing screening and hearing healthcare. Thursday morning began with a welcome from Patrick Feeney, the Director of the NCRAR, followed by fascinating presentations from Bob Frisina and Richard Smith. Bob Frisina presented data showing that hormone replacement therapy and testosterone can diminish peripheral and central auditory function, while Richard Smith described how phenomic data complement genomic data and he addressed current genetic counseling practices. The afternoon presentations were from the NCRAR Multiple Sclerosis (MS) research team (M. Samantha Lewis, Bob Folmer and Bill Rooney) and Dennis Trune. We learned that electrophysiological and imaging data show MS to be associated with dysfunction of auditory pathways, while from Dennis Trune we learned about the current theories about mechanisms and treatments for autoimmune hearing loss.

Ivan Lopez opened Friday morning’s presentations with a fascinating overview of hearing loss and vestibular dysfunction due to abuse of opiates. This was followed by Nina Dronker’s superb presentation on neural correlates of auditory comprehension deficits in stroke patients. She demonstrated the utility of new imaging techniques for localizing damage, and used patient videos to illustrate the function of areas of the brain, and how stroke-related damage impacts both speech understanding and production. The final afternoon presentations of the meeting were from George Gates and Cynthia Wible. George Gates described his findings showing an association between early central auditory processing deficits and dementia, while Cynthia Wible explained her new model of schizophrenic hallucinations, and the associated areas of the brain in which abnormal function is found.

The conference ended with a roundtable discussion of the principles that our speakers raised during their talks. This discussion as well as those that followed each presentation were enlightening and really highlighted the insightful questions of audience members and the thoughtful responses provided by the speakers. The audience especially enjoyed that all of the presenters provided a clinical message from their sophisticated research.

No description of the conference would be complete without a thank you to all who helped out with tasks big and small - to Carl Swicord and Ann Strong of VA Employee Education Service for organizing the videotaping of the event, and to all NCRAR employees who gave time before and during the event. We also thank our sponsors, the NIH-NIDCD, VA Rehabilitation Research and Development, GNResound, Oticon, Etymotic Research Inc., Phonak, and Frye Electronics Inc., for their generous support of this meeting.   

Broadcast of Conference Content:
The conference sessions are available through the VAKN via the VA intranet at the following links:

• Karen Cruickshanks, Ph.D. Epidemiology of Hearing Loss and Tinnitus: Personal Health and Lifestyle Factors
• Nina Dronkers, Ph.D. Correlates of Auditory Comprehension Deficits in Stroke Patients with Aphasia 
• Robert Folmer, Ph.D., William Rooney, Ph.D., M. Samantha Lewis, Ph.D. Auditory Dysfunction in Multiple Sclerosis 
• Robert Frisina, Ph.D. Hormones and Hearing: Too Much or Too Little of a Good Thing Can Be Ototoxic 
• George Gates, M.D. Dysfunction Associated with Dementia/Alzheimer Disease 
• Ivan Lopez, Ph.D. Hearing Loss and Vestibular Dysfunction due to Abuse of Synthetic Opiate 
• Richard JH Smith, M.D. The Evolving Management of Hereditary Hearing Loss
• Dennis Trune, Ph.D. Autoimmune Inner Ear Disease 
• Cynthia Wible, Ph.D. Auditory Hallucinations and Hearing Voices: From Phonemese to Social Communication 

If you do not have access to the VA intranet, you can borrow the DVDs by contacting ncrar@va.gov.

For additional images from the 2011 Conference, please click here.

For information about previous conferences, please click here.