小児の心因性難聴—症状の特徴と診断の手がかり

Psychogenic Hearing Impairment in Children: Its Characteristics and Identification

I．緒言

　小児に中等度の感音難聴がみられ，そのわりに言語の了解度が良い場合，心因性難聴を疑う必要がある。特に最近は自覚症状を訴えない小児心因性難聴が増加している傾向にある^1〜3）。今回我々は，無自覚例2例を含めた5例の小児心因性難聴症1例を経験したのでここに報告し，その特徴と診断の手がかりについて検討した。

　Five female cases of psychogenic hearing impairment in age from 8 to 16 years are reported. Two of them were unaware of their hearing problems, but found at the time of examination. All cases showed the audiograms indicated a marked bilateral or unilateral sensorineural hearing loss with flat or saucer type. Three of them showed the concentric defect of visual field.

　In practical point of view, Bekesy audiometry was proved to be useful for the identification of psychogenic hearing impairment, if it showed type V pattern.