King-Kopetzky syndrome

King-Kopetzky syndrome is an auditory disability with clinically a “normal” hearing threshold. It is also known as obscure auditory dysfunction (OAD) or auditory disability with normal hearing (ADN), The main reported disability is difficulty in hearing speech in the presence of background noise.

It was found that King Kopetzky syndrome patients will have a worse Social Hearing Handicap index (SHHI),indicating they suffer a significant degree of speech-hearing disability.

Causes
It seems that somatic anxiety and situations of stress may be determinants of speech-hearing disability.

Some studies indicated an increased prevalence of a family history of hearing impairment in these patients. The pattern of results is suggestive that King-Kopetzky patients may be related to conditions of autosomal dominant inheritance.

Subcategories
It was found that based on sensitized measures of auditory dysfunction and on psychological assessment, Subjects could be subdivided into seven subcategories .

1- middle ear dysfunction

2- mild cochlear pathology

3- central/medial olivocochlear efferent system (MOCS) auditory dysfunction

4- purely psychological problems

5- multiple auditory pathologies

6- combined auditory dysfunction and psychological problems

7- unknown

Different subgroups may represent different pathogenic and aetiological factors. Thus, subcategorization provides further understanding of the basis of King-Kopetzky syndrome, and hence may guide the rehabilitative management of these patients.

Recent research
There has been some interest in testing that King-Kopetzky syndrome might be an early stage of late onset familial hearing impairment by Professor Dafydd Stephens, F Zhao and Angeles Espeso at the Welsh Hearing Institute, Cardiff University.