This paper describes a comparison of the electroacoustic characteristics of five hearing aids: (1) a linear BTE aid of the type dispensed under the UK National Health Service (NHS), the BE19; (2) an analogue programmable BTE aid incorporating two-channel wide dynamic range compression, the ReSound BT2; (3) and (4) two ...

Literature and ideas are reviewed concerning the modulation of presbycusis - the influence of variables that can alter the severity and/or time course of presbycusis or counteract its negative aspects. Eleven topics are identified: variables related to biological aging; genetics; noise-induced hearing loss; moderately augmented acoustic environment; neural plasticity and ...

The value associated with self-perceived hearing aid benefit was assessed using a "willingness-to-pay" (WTP) approach. Abbreviated Profile of Hearing Aid Benefit (APHAB) data were obtained from 79 veterans who also indicated how much they were willing to pay for each hearing aid. The results of a multiple regression analysis revealed ...

Sensorineural hearing disorders are a major and universal community health problem. In many cases, hearing aids offer the only solution for people suffering from such disorders. Unfortunately existing aids do not provide any improvement in intelligibility of the signal when background noise is present. A hearing aid system should ideally ...

The aim of the present study was to investigate factors that might affect hearing aid use, satisfaction and perceived benefit. A further aim was to look at which variables affect the choice of hearing aid, in particular, an in-the-ear (ITE) versus a behind-the-ear (BTE) device. Twenty-nine elderly hearing-impaired people with ...

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the impact of low-threshold compression and hearing aid style (in-the-ear [ITE] versus behind-the-ear [BTE]) on the directional benefit and performance of commercially available directional hearing aids. DESIGN: Forty-seven adult listeners with mild-to-moderate sensorineural hearing loss were fit bilaterally with one BTE and four different ITE hearing aids. ...

This study was designed to explore parent reactions to the early stages of audiologic assessment and intervention. A total of 213 parents whose children were under the age of 6 years returned a mail survey. Respondents from 45 states participated. Parents were asked to (1) report the approximate age of ...

A multiphase study examining electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) between wireless digital telephones and hearing aids has been under way at the University of Oklahoma EMC Center since May 1995. In a phase 1 clinical study involving 68 hearing aid wearers, interference varied significantly by telephone technology, hearing aid type, and hearing ...

A digital, wireless telephone system, the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM), was introduced in Australia in 1993. Studies were conducted at the National Acoustic Laboratories to determine how the use of GSM mobile telephones (i.e., wireless telephones) causes interference in hearing aids and how hearing aids could be made ...

Wireless telephones are becoming increasingly common and will be more so in the future. Unfortunately, many are unusable with hearing aids and may actively interfere with the normal use of hearing aids because of the electromagnetic interference (EMI) generated by wireless telephones. The EMI generated by digital wireless telephones is ...

This article presents an overview of past and current experiences with time division multiple assess-based (Global System for Mobil Communication) mobile telephones in Europe as seen by the European Hearing Instrument Manufacturers Association. Initial fear of widespread interference problems for hearing aid users in general owing to use of a ...

This study reports the results of a large number of hearing-aid outcome measures obtained from 173 elderly hearing-aid wearers following one month of hearing-aid use. All participants in this study were fit binaurally with identical full-concha in-the-ear (ITE) hearing aids having linear Class-D amplifiers with output-limiting compression. Outcome measures included ...

This pilot study was designed to examine the effects of either providing or withholding subject-driven, postfitting electroacoustic changes (fine tuning) on hearing aid performance as measured by tests of speech recognition in noise, sound quality, and benefit. A group of adult first-time hearing aid users with moderate, high-frequency sensorineural hearing ...

Communication is a shared experience which can be substantially affected by hearing impairment. Significant others may experience difficulties not only in direct communication but also in personal and social relationships. The present study was designed to investigate the impact on significant others of hearing loss in a partner and the ...

PURPOSE: To define variations in the clinical manifestations of Stickler syndrome. METHODS: A questionnaire was sent to 612 persons. RESULTS: Of the 316 usable replies, 95% of persons had eye problems (retinal detachment occurred in 60% of patients, myopia in 90%, and blindness in 4%); 84% had problems with facial ...

The advent of various technologies for middle ear implants (MEI) that directly stimulate the ossicles has created a new therapy for hearing loss and a new segment of the medical device industry. Benefits can be established when the MEI is compared with the best alternative currently available. Otologics, LLC, has ...

A major challenge for otologists treating middle ear infection is to obtain a dry ear and optimal hearing. If the patient needs amplification and uses an air conduction hearing aid, the ear mold, occluding the ear canal, may provoke or aggravate the infection in the middle ear and thus cause ...

The Rion Device E-type (RDE) has been applied to 39 patients with severe mixed deafness that could not be rehabilitated by surgical means or the conventional hearing aid. Careful follow-up studies have been conducted on all of them to assess clinical and audiologic results. The device could function more than ...

Despite the many improvements in hearing aid technology, conventional hearing aids continue to have significant limitations, which has led to increased interest in implantable hearing devices. The SOUNDTEC Direct Drive Hearing System for moderate to moderately severe sensorineural hearing loss is one such device. In this article the authors present ...

OBJECTIVE: To introduce conjoint analysis (CA) as a method to explain choice decisions of hearing aid users and to measure the contributions of different hearing aid attributes involved. DESIGN: The study was conducted using CA, a method that is well established in marketing, but has not been used for hearing ...

The literature suggests that directional microphone hearing aids (DMHAs) are a viable means for improving the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) for hearing-impaired listeners. The amount of directional advantage they provide, however, remains relatively unclear because of variability observed among individual studies. The present investigation was undertaken in an attempt to establish ...

A postal survey was carried out to determine the current clinical practice amongst consultant otolaryngologists in the UK, regarding re-insertion of ventilation tubes or recommendation of hearing aids in cases of recurrence of otitis media with effusion (OME) after ventilation tube extrusion. Amongst the 319 respondents, 15 (4.70 per cent) ...

The results of several studies on hearing aid use in the Welsh population were considered to investigate some general principles on determinants of such use within the general populations of developed countries. Overall hearing aid possession and use were not found to have changed significantly over the past 18 years, ...

The Three-Clinic Hearing Aid Selection Profile (HASP) was developed to assess a patient's beliefs about a number of basic considerations felt to be critical to the hearing aid selection (HAS) process. These characteristics are felt to be key to the acceptance of amplification and include motivation, expectations, cost of goods ...

Currently, the only behind-the-ear hearing aid that provides a frequency transposition function is the ImpaCt DSR675, recently introduced by AVR Communications Ltd. of Israel. In tests with three hearing-impaired adults, the performance of the ImpaCt aid(s) was compared with that of each subject's own (nontransposing) hearing aids. Recognition of monosyllabic ...

This study examined the influence of technology, demographic factors, and prefitting expectations, attitudes, and adjustment to hearing loss on hearing aid outcome. Clients obtaining new hearing aids completed questionnaires measuring personal adjustment to hearing loss, expectations of and attitudes toward hearing aids, and hearing aid benefit. Eighty-one percent of the ...

Background noise is particularly damaging to speech intelligibility for people with hearing loss. The problem of reducing noise in hearing aids is one of great importance--and great difficulty. The problem has been addressed in many different ways over the years. The techniques used range from relatively simple forms of filtering ...

About one in five adults has some form of hearing impairment. This paper reports on a survey which found significant variation in the provision of hearing aid services across Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden and the United Kingdom. Per capita expenditure levels were estimated to vary from under 3 euros in ...

The increasing degree of sophistication in hearing aid technology calls for appropriate fitting strategies, as otherwise hearing aid users cannot receive the full benefit from the most modern technological achievements. This paper describes the state of the art in hearing aid fitting procedures and offers a look into possible future ...

There is a very strong movement to develop universal newborn hearing screening. This effort is the end product of a long international research effort to determine the most effective means to screen newborns. Now that OAE and ABR together offer a superior mechanism to achieve universal screening, problems related to ...

As bio-communicators we may provide both the product and equipment an audience needs to see and hear a presentation. We also need to understand the physical aspects of providing a comfortable listening environment, how that will affect the sound and a little bit of the science involved. We also need ...

The present study assesses the experiences with bilateral amplification in a group of 144 people provided with two hearing aids between May 1994 and July 1997. Two-thirds of the participants preferred to use both prescribed hearing aids. The participants reported that they used their hearing aids frequently. Bilateral amplification was ...

In this study, a "virtual hearing aid" was used to compare different types of hearing aids. A digital hearing aid (Oticon DigiFocus Compact) and an analogue, automatic reference hearing aid were compared in a group of 17 schoolchildren (median age: 10 years) with moderate to severe, symmetrical, sensorineural hearing loss. ...

Calculations of the needs of healthcare, hearing healthcare included, are usually based on clinical data rather than on valid prevalence figures. According to our recent population study, the number of citizens needing hearing aids in Finland will be twice the figure usually presented, 280 000 for the country as a ...

Conventionally, bone-conduction (BC) hearing aids are tested with skull simulator devices and the individual adjustments are reliant on psychoacoustic free-field audiometry. Here we present a novel PC-based system for in situ measurements of BC hearing aids. With the presented system, we are able to measure the hearing aid induced skull ...

OBJECTIVE: To assess the safety and efficacy of a new semi-implantable electromagnetic hearing device, the SOUNDTEC Direct Drive Hearing System (DDHS), and to compare its performance with that of subjects' previously worn, optimally fit hearing aids. Preliminary results for the first 10 subjects are presented. STUDY DESIGN: The protocol specified ...

Hearing aid use was assessed using both objective (time recorded in the memory of the hearing aid) and subjective methods (interview and patient diary) in a clinical series of consecutive adult female and male Finnish and Norwegian hearing aid candidates (n = 84). The median study time was 34 days ...

Room reverberation can affect feedback cancellation in hearing aids, with the strength of the effects depending on the acoustical conditions. These effects were studied using a behind the ear (BTE) hearing aid mounted on a dummy head and coupled to the ear canal via an open fitting. The hearing aid ...

In the United Kingdom, two and a half million people over 70 are thought to have hearing impairment that would benefit from an aid. Only one-third of these will possess one, and as many as 10 per cent probably never use their aid. Although it is important to examine the ...

Successful hearing aid fittings using high-technology features for elderly patients require consideration of factors beyond results obtained from routine audiologic evaluations. A holistic hearing aid selection, fitting, and evaluation approach that considers patient characteristics from communication, physical, psychological, and social assessment domains is presented here along with a checklist and ...

Differences between insertion gain measurements and coupler measurements were investigated using two different hearing aids, to assess the accuracy of hearing aid fitting methods which involve the use of real-ear-to-coupler differences (RECDs). The hearing aids used were the NHS BE19 and the Lavis X11. They were allocated alternately to 80 ...

People with learning disabilities are at increased risk of impaired hearing. The aims of this study were to assess the prevalence of hearing impairment and ear disease in people attending the specialist Otolaryngology/Hearing Therapy clinic at the Phoenix NHS Trust, Bristol. The present and future process of such a service ...

OBJECTIVE: To measure hearing aid performance using circuitry representative of the major eras of technological advancement during the 20th century. DESIGN: Twenty subjects with audiometric profiles consistent with hearing aid candidacy were fit with each of seven hearing aids. No directional microphones were used and binaural benefit was not assessed. ...

The performance of 40 hearing-impaired adults with the GN ReSound digital BZ5 hearing instrument was compared with performance with linear hearing aids with input compression limiting (AGC-I) or two-channel analog wide dynamic range compression (WDRC) instruments. The BZ5 was evaluated with an omnidirectional microphone, dual-microphone directionality, and a noise reduction ...

Statistical, content, and factorial validity of the Satisfaction with Amplification in Daily Life (SADL) scale was assessed. SADL subscales closely correspond to four satisfaction domains. Subjective benefit is a key component of satisfaction, but other nonauditory factors contribute to wearer satisfaction, notably telephone use and appearance. Results confirm the SADLs ...

The fitting of directional microphone hearing aids is becoming increasingly more routine, and this fitting option has proven to be a successful method to improve speech intelligibility in many noisy listening environments. Data suggest, however, that some hearing-impaired listeners receive significantly more directional benefit than others. It is of interest, ...

CONTEXT: Numerous studies have demonstrated that hearing aids provide significant benefit for a wide range of sensorineural hearing loss, but no carefully controlled, multicenter clinical trials comparing hearing aid efficacy have been conducted. OBJECTIVE: To compare the benefits provided to patients with sensorineural hearing loss by 3 commonly used hearing ...

The Nottingham Paediatric Cochlear Implant Programme (NPCIP) specializes in the cochlear implantation of children under the age of 5 years. The initial stage in the pre-implant evaluation process is audiological assessment. In complex paediatric cases, behavioural audiological assessment may be difficult. In such cases, an objective measure to verify the ...

Hearing-impaired listeners with similar hearing losses may differ widely in their ability to understand speech in noise. Such individual susceptibility to noise may explain why patients obtain varying degrees of benefit from hearing aids. The chief purpose of this study was to determine if adaptive measures of unaided speech recognition ...

OBJECTIVE: Objective of this study is to know how a frequency compression hearing aid with new concepts is beneficial for severe-to-profound hearing impairments. (2) METHODS: Clinical trials of this hearing aid were conducted for 11 severe-to-profound hearing impaired listeners. These 11 wore the frequency compression hearing aid in their daily ...