| Title | Intelligent System for Newborn Auditory Brain-Stem Evoked Potentials |
| Author(s) | M. I. Fasolo; R. R. Seixas; J. C. Nievola; P. J. Abatti |
| Source | Proceedings of the World Congress on Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering, Page 457 |
| Publication Date | 1994 |
| Abstract | Hearing impairment prejudices child's development by limiting or hindering the learning of speech and language consequently rendering family and social integration. The Auditory Brain-Stem Evoked Potentials (ABEP) studies of Seixas RR, Fasolo MI & Moreira RN realized in 1,300 patients were ages ranging from zero to ten years old demonstrated: 82.8% incidence of hearing impairment; the late performance of examinations to evidence a definite hearing loss as 54.1% of the examined patients were at ages ranging from one to three years old. It is to be noted that hearing impairment risk-factors demonstrates a close correlation with certain modalities of gestational, perinatal and neonatal events. The purpose of this work described in this paper were to design and implement a rule-based expert system for automatically execution of newborn auditory brain-stem evoked potentials' exams that provide a conclusive hearing impairment diagnosis. This system communicates with a biological signal acquisition subsystem and aggregates patient clinical history and other medical data. The expert system judgment is based on clinical history, medical data and ABEP records correlation's (fact base); and hearing impairment risk-factors (rule base) included on the expert system knowledge base. The heuristic approach employed has used clinical neurophysiology and neonatology expertises to build system's knowledge base. This system provides a necessary condition to implant an automated hearing screening program among neonates for early detection of hearing impairment. The results obtained by this system are compatible almost as well as a highly trained human expertise. |