Otology concerns the biological study of ear alterations and diseases, solely. So, the diagnosis of audiovestibular diseases tends to be idiopathic or is based on theoretical concepts such as idiopathic sudden deafness, Ménière disease, benign paroxysmal positional vertigo, tinnitus, hyperacusis, or idiopathic facial paralysis. The treatment for these pathologies is symptomatic. Otosociology takes the aetiology and pathogenesis of the ear and situates them within the social and cultural environment of the patient. Then, audiovestibular disease is based on evidence, and the treatment options seek to solve the causes and consequences produced. Otosociology should be considered as a new discipline. Otosociology came into being since otology does not provide definitive solutions for the audiovestibular alterations produced from the point of view of the ear, whereas otosociology finds these solutions within the social/cultural environment of the patient. Where otology emphasises the diseases of the ear, otosociology deals with social manifestations. Where otology deals with idiopathic diseases, otosociology deals with causes and pathogeny produced by interactions in the social and cultural surroundings of the patient. Where otology offers symptomatic treatment, otosociology offers treatment of causes and consequences. Otosociology can fill significant voids in audiovestibular processes from the perspective of the patient’s social environment. 1. Introduction Quite often, we come across diseases in various medical specialties that are catalogued in biomedicine as idiopathic, that is to say, diseases with no apparent or known cause. Normally, these idiopathic diseases are treated with symptomatic remedies, whose objective is to improve the symptoms that have negative impacts on the normal lifestyle of patients, but without dealing with or solving the causes that provoke them. Biomedicine is always searching for the causes for diseases inside the organism, without finding them, when the causes and pathogenesis tend to be outside of the organism, in the environment. Often, treatment consists of social modifications that attempt to resolve these pathological processes. Environmental factors influence all diseases, but in idiopathic processes are crucial. Given the limitations of biomedicine to give clear explanations, and consequently a cure or remedy for certain diseases, a new paradigm is needed that can explain the causes of these pathologies that are considered idiopathic. To this end, it is essential that we integrate different elements through the formation
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