BENEFIT OF THE BONE-ANCHORED HEARING AID WITH DIFFERENT AUDITORY PROFILES
van Wieringen A (1), Bosman AJ (2), De Voecht K (3), Wouters J (1).
(1) ExpORL, Department of Neurosciences, KULeuven, Herestraat 49 bus 721, B-3000 Leuven, Belgium; (2)Department of Otorhinolaryngology, University Medical Centre St. Radboud, Nijmegen, The Netherlands;(3) ENT-dept, UZLeuven, Kapucijnenvoer 33, B-3000 Leuven, Belgium.
Objectives: Assessment of audiological and self-report outcomes of the bone-anchored hearing aid (BAHA) in patients with different auditory profiles.
Study Design: Prospective audiometric evaluation on 16 patients at Experimental ORL (University Hospital Leuven)
Methods: 18 different experimental conditions: unaided and aided sound-field thresholds, speech intelligibility in quiet and in noise (presented from different angles). In addition, the Speech, Spatial and Qualities of hearing scale (SSQ), the APHAB questionnaires, and several other questions were administered as self-report measures. Data were collected of 16 unilaterally fitted patients, of whom 5 with Single Sided Deafness (SSD), 6 with an asymmetry in bone conduction hearing loss on either side limited to 20-25 dB (BIL), and 5 with an asymmetry in bone conduction hearing loss greater than 25 dB (MON).
Results: SSD patients benefit from lifting the head shadow with the BAHA. BIL patients, who listen with both ears, perform significantly different in aided and unaided conditions. The latter is also true for the MON patients. However, their hearing loss at the non-BAHA side is too great to contribute to hearing. The differences between unaided and aided conditions result from listening predominantly with their BAHA. Self-report outcomes show that all subjects were satisfied with the intervention, thus corroborating the audiometric data.
Conclusions: The BAHA enhances performance in all three hearing configurations, albeit to different extents. The subjective data corroborate the speech data and the BAHA is considered an effective intervention by all subjects
E-mail: astrid.vanwieringen@med.kuleuven.be
