Routine rehabilitation procedures in auditory communication handicap.

A well known fact and an established experience in all audiological units, handling large groups of hearing loss patients is, that in many of them (15% or more?) - mostly having severe, but occasionally moderate hearing loss - the conventional audiological rehabilitation programme (hearing aids, special devices, functional training etc.) cannot adequately compensate for their communication handicap, i.e. they constitute problem cases, and consequently also a challenge to research. This experience gained through many years, but certainly also, in addition, the cochlear implant discussion during the last decade, emphasizing the "deaf patient", have focused our interest on this large, but heterogeneous patient group, whose common basis is that the patients consider themselves "deaf" or "almost deaf". The handling of these patients, of course, requires a multidisciplinary approach with a broad program of diagnostic and therapeutic measures. The activities presented in this supplement is meant to be one step in the direction of finding a suitable structure in Stockholm to adequately handle patients with auditory communication handicap.