The All India Institute of Speech and Hearing [AIISH] at Mysore is setting up a Multipurpose Rehabilitation Centre [MRC] for communication disorders at a cost of Rs. 3.6 crore. MRC is also envisaged as a nodal training, research and clinical centre at the national level. The Institute opened a new hi-tech library and an information centre here last evening. It will also have a web site, which would provide all details on neurology, ENT and other related disciplines.

Dr. S Jayaram, director, AIISH said that once the MRC was ready by the year-end, it would be able to provide diagnosis as well as therapy and rehabilitation on a larger scale. The MRC will have 204 rooms on a built up area of 54,000 sq.ft. and would house neurology, paediatrics, diagnostics, physiotherapy and medical clinics of international standards.

The director said that there had been a ten-fold increase in the patients to the Institute over the past decade. The load would increase with the specialised units in child and adult language disorders. The pre-school programmes for hearing impairment, mental disability autism and learning disability also can increase the number of patients to the Institute.

The intake for the graduate and postgraduate programmes at the Institute would be increased and internship would be introduced for the graduate students. The internship programme would give the students practical clinical training in assessment, management and rehabilitation of patients with communication disorders in various clinical set-ups, informed Dr. Jayaram.

The new library would make it easy to access information. Journals and books in the library could be searched for on the computerised database. The Institute will also be connected to speech and hearing centres in New Delhi, Chandigarh, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Hyderabad and Bhubaneswar. The library has a wealth of information on speech, pathology, audiology, ENT, neurology, electronics, psychology and linguistics.