Age-related hearing loss in dogs and treatment with Vibrant Soundbridge middle ear implant

Abstract

Hearing loss is a common disorder in many breeds of dogs and auditory dysfunction and its clinical consequences can vary from mild to severe. Dogs with bilateral hearing loss are unable to anticipate dangers such as motor vehicles and they may consequently fall victim to serious or fatal injury. It is generally assumed that hearing in dogs becomes impaired with advancing age, yet there have been few reports to support this assumption. This article includes a study of the loss of frequency-specific hearing in aged dogs and a longitudinal study of changes of hearing with increasing age. Decreased hearing in the aging dogs was assessed by auditory brainstem-evoked responses. The study demonstrated that in dogs, as in humans, hearing becomes impaired across the entire frequency range with aging, but primarily in the high-frequency area. In addition, the article reports the results of hearing assessment in three dogs with age-related hearing loss and the improvement obtained by implantation of a small electromagnetic middle ear hearing device (Vibrant Soundbridge). The implants functioned satisfactory and produced clear improvement in hearing using the maximal gain setting.