Hearing Loss, Binaural, Hearing Loss, Monaural
Conditions
Keywords
Hearing Aid Usage (monaural, binaural), Cochlear Implant Usage (monaural, binaural), Hearing Aid and Cochlear Implant Usage (monaural)
Brief summary
Communication on telephone is challenging for people with hearing loss. For hearing aid users, for instance, the inventions for improving speech intelligibility on the phone range from an integrated tele coil and individual hearing programs to specially designed phone devices. No formal studies involving these devices have been carried out with CI users. Thus, this comparative study includes hearing aid as well as CI and bimodal users to evaluate different hearing solutions for communication on telephone in terms of intelligibility and ease of use.
Detailed description
Communication on telephone is challenging for people with hearing loss, due to a number of factors: * The lack of visual cues (lip-reading), * The lack of binaural abilities, * The presence of (loud) background noise in a variety of listening situations, * A modified speech signal due to reduced frequency bandwidth and * Difficulties coupling the phone to the CI. For hearing aid users, for instance, the inventions for improving speech intelligibility on the phone range from an integrated tele coil and individual hearing programs to specially designed phone devices. No formal studies involving these devices have been carried out with CI users. Thus, this comparative study includes hearing aid as well as CI and bimodal users to evaluate the different hearing solutions for communication on telephone in terms of intelligibility and ease of use: * Phonak DECT - cordless telephone for HA-, CI- users and bimodal users * Phonak EasyCall - accessories for Bluetooth capable mobile telephones for HA-, CI- and bimodal users * Phonak DuoPhone - streaming function, which provides the speech signal to both ears
Interventions
DEVICEstandard telephone setting
without streaming function
DEVICEDECT
cordless telephone (streaming to both hearing devices)
DEVICEEasyCall
accessories for Bluetooth capable mobile telephones (streaming to both hearing devices)
DEVICEDuoPhone
streaming function, which provides the speech signal to both ears
Sponsors
Advanced Bionics
Advanced Bionics AG
Study design
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Intervention model
PARALLEL
Primary purpose
OTHER
Masking
NONE
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
ALL
Age
18 Years to 80 Years
Healthy volunteers
No
Inclusion criteria
* Unilateral HA users with SRT of better (lower) than + 3 dB * Bilateral HA users with SRT of better (lower) than 0 dB * Unilateral CI users: Unilaterally implanted with an Advanced Bionics CII, HiRes90k or Advantage implant 1-year acclimatization time after implantation at least 20% correct for a sentence test delivered with a SNR of + 10 dB, or a SRT of better (lower) than + 15 dB * Bimodal (CI + HA) users: Unilaterally implanted with an Advanced Bionics CII, HiRes90k or Advantage implant CI side: at least 20% correct for a sentence test delivered with a SNR of + 10 dB, or a SRT of better (lower) than + 15 dB HA side: unaided threshold ≤ 80 dB at least for frequencies up to 500 Hz * All users: Informed Consent as documented by signature Ability for speech understanding in the presence of competing noise without any assistance from lip-reading Ability to give subjective feedback in a certain listening situation First language: German or Swiss-German
Exclusion criteria
* All users: Difficulties additional to hearing impairment that would interfere with the study procedures Acute inflammation or pain in head-/neck area Dizziness Age of participants \< 18 years Age of participants \> 80 years
Design outcomes
Primary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| speech reception threshold (SRT) assessment with audiological measures | 6 months | differences in speech reception threshold (SRT) on the phone in the presence of background noise between the Phonak DECT phone and a standard phone will be assessed with audiological measures. |
Secondary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Subjective ratings assessment with scaling | 6 months | * differences in preference ratings in the presence of background noise between a standard phone, a standard phone + DuoPhone algorithm, the DECT-telephone * differences in preference ratings in the presence of background noise between a standard mobile phone, a standard mobile phone + DuoPhone algorithm and a standard mobile phone + EasyCall accessory |
Countries
Switzerland
Outcome results
None listed