gms | German Medical Science

76th Annual Meeting of the German Society of Oto-Rhino-Laryngology, Head and Neck Surgery

German Society of Oto-Rhino-Laryngology, Head and Neck Surgery

04.05. - 08.05.2005, Erfurt

Article

Send article

Psychoacoustic evaluation of snoring

Meeting Abstract

Search Medline for

  • corresponding author Alfred Dreher - HNO-Klinik der Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, München
  • author Richard de la Chaux - HNO-Klinik der Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, München
  • Christine Klemens - HNO-Klinik der Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, München
  • Tobias Rader - HNO-Klinik der Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, München
  • Uwe Baumann - HNO-Klinik der Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, München
  • Gerd Rasp - HNO-Klinik der Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, München

Deutsche Gesellschaft für Hals-Nasen-Ohren-Heilkunde, Kopf- und Hals-Chirurgie. 76. Jahresversammlung der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Hals-Nasen-Ohren-Heilkunde, Kopf- und Hals-Chirurgie e.V.. Erfurt, 04.-08.05.2005. Düsseldorf, Köln: German Medical Science; 2005. Doc05hno144

The electronic version of this article is the complete one and can be found online at: http://www.egms.de/en/meetings/hno2005/05hno233.shtml

Published: September 22, 2005

© 2005 Dreher et al.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/deed.en). You are free: to Share – to copy, distribute and transmit the work, provided the original author and source are credited.

Outline

Text

Several surgical and nonsurgical procedures for the treatment of snoring have been developed. Their efficacy is estimated based on the impression of the bedpartner or the measurement of the sound pressure level. But the impression of the bedpartner is influenced by a lot of factors which are independent of the snoring sound, and the sound pressure level doesn't take in regard the effect of the noise on humans. Therefore a psychoacoustic evaluation of snoring, combining both aspects, was used for the first time.

10 patients complaining of loud snoring had polysomnography with recording of their snoring. Typical sections of the snoring, lasting 30 seconds, were presented to 3 examiners for evaluation of their annoyance (0-100).

The annoyance of all snoring sequences was estimated at 47 +/- 23, the most acceptable snoring sequence at 15 +/- 9, the worst at 85 +/- 5. The estimations of the examiners concerning a single snoring sequence varied by 9 +/- 5.

The psychoacoustic evaluation of snoring seems to be a practicable and promising tool for the measurement of snoring. This new method should make the comparison of different kinds of procedures for the treatment of snoring more reliable and relevant.