Hearing Loss
Conditions
Brief summary
Twenty people with hearing impairment will be tested and fitted binaurally with hearing aids. During a real-world listening situation, each participant will be asked to compare one program with a novel algorithm to one with a standard microphone configuration. They will provide ratings on a range of outcome measures including overall preference and awareness of background noise. Overall and specific preferences for the different programs/algorithms will be determined by their subjective responses to determine if there is a significant difference between the two programs.
Detailed description
People with hearing loss/impairment often have difficulty not only hearing certain sounds (e.g., environmental and speech sounds) but also listening in certain situations such as those where noise competes with speech. This is a common situation in people's real life conversations and one which different hearing instrument algorithms could facilitate. This study will investigate the listening preferences of people with hearing impairment while wearing hearing aids. They will listen to speech in a situation which is commonly reported as difficult for people who wear hearing aids. Participants will wear one set of hearing aids set to their hearing loss with two programs providing these different algorithms. By having the participants toggle (with a remote control) back and forth between algorithms designed for these real-life difficult listening situations, they can rate their preferences and listening experiences. Of particular interest, in addition to overall preference, are ratings of the background noise, listening effort and annoyance of artefacts.
Interventions
DEVICEhearing aid -novel program
novel microphone configuration
DEVICEhearing aid - standard program
standard microphone configuration
Sponsors
Western University
Sonova AG
Study design
Allocation
NA
Intervention model
SINGLE_GROUP
Primary purpose
TREATMENT
Masking
NONE
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
ALL
Age
18 Years to 99 Years
Healthy volunteers
Yes
Inclusion criteria
Subjects fulfilling all of the following inclusion criteria are eligible for the investigation: * Including adults with sensorineural mild to moderate-severe hearing loss * hearing aid experience (greater than 6 months) * who are able to complete the task in English. * Language: Can speak and understand English Fluently Hearing loss within the fitting ranges of the investigational products. * Healthy outer ear. * Ability to understand instructions. * Ability to describe listening experiences. * Ability to fill out questionnaires. * Informed consent as documented by signature.
Exclusion criteria
\- The presence of any one of the following
Design outcomes
Primary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Overall preference for a specific microphone setting/configuration | 20 minutes | Rating of preference on a scale from 0-100, with descriptors ('very low' to 'very high') |
Secondary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Rating of awareness of background noise | 20 minutes | Scale from 0-100 with descriptors ('not at all' to 'extremely aware') |
| Rating of Listening effort | 20 minutes | Scale from 1 - 7 with descriptors ('not at all' to 'very') |
| Rating of annoyance of artefacts | 20 minutes | Rating on a scale from 0-100 with descriptors ('not at all' to 'extremely annoying') |
Countries
Canada
Contacts
Primary ContactDon Hayes, PhD
Outcome results
None listed