Abstract
We herein report a case of psychogenesis articulation disorder combined with psychogenic hearing loss. The patient was a 51-year-old female librarian with complaints of hearing loss and an articulation disorder. Two years earlier, she had suddenly developed hearing loss in the right ear, followed gradual hearing loss in the left ear four months before consulting our hospital. At the same time, her family noticed that she had an articulation disorder. Her eardrum was normal. Pure tone audiometry showed serious hearing loss. The threshold of the auditory brain stem response was normal. There were no mechanical problems or central nervous system disorders regarding the articulation organs. The type of error of articulation was a floating error. However, the patient primarily substituted /k/ was for /t/, and /ɡ/ for /d/. In brief conversations, the frequency of the substitution decreased, and normal articulation appeared. Therefore, the articulation disorder was considered to be a disorder of functionality. At home,the patient was social restricted owing to the fact that her younger brother had an intellectual disability. In addition,she felt stress regarding interpersonal relationships at the office. On SPECT, a slight decrease in the blood flow was observed in the bilateral frontal lobes, suggesting a depressive condition. Therefore, we diagnosed the patient's articulation disorder to be a psychogenic articulation disorder.
