ABSTRACT
The most common complaint among individuals with hearing impairment is the inability to follow a conversation when several people are talking simultaneously, a noisy listening situation which is completely different from the quiet surrounding of the conventional pure tone audiometry used as basis for the hearing aid settings. The purpose of this report was to present important characteristics of the BeneFit Method (BFM), a procedure that fits the hearing aid under simulated conditions of competing speech and also a clinical pilot evaluation study comparing the BFM to the NAL-R recommendations and also to the Logic procedure, a GN resound proprietary fitting algorithm representing a modern digital hearing aid fitting procedure. Speech recognition scores in noise (SRSN) using monosyllabic words presented under different background noise levels were evaluated on 21 randomly selected subjects with hearing impairment. The subjects were fitted with the same type of hearing aid Danalogic 163D according to the BFM procedure as well as the logic procedure, the latter developed and recommended by the manufacturer. A comparison of the SRSN when using the subjects' current hearing aid fitted according to the NAL-R procedure was also made. Only the BFM procedure provided a significant SRSN improvement compared to the unaided condition (P< 0.01) in a signal/speech-noise level of 75/65 dB corresponding to a normal cocktail party condition. Moreover, patients performed significantly higher SRSN when fitted according to the BFM, than when fitted according the Logic or NAL-R procedures. The BFM procedure, which is based on individual and functional detection of hearing thresholds in noise levels corresponding to a cocktail party condition, can improve SRSN significantly. Hearing aids should be fitted under conditions similar to those when the hearing disability is perceived the most, i.e, in an environment with background noise.
Subject(s)
Aged , Aged, 80 and over , Audiometry, Pure-Tone , Audiometry, Speech/instrumentation , Auditory Threshold/physiology , Denmark , Equipment Design , Female , Hearing Aids , Hearing Loss/diagnosis , Humans , Male , Noise , Perceptual Masking/physiology , Pilot Projects , Prosthesis Fitting/instrumentation , Reproducibility of Results , Speech PerceptionABSTRACT
Se planteó la validación de una prueba de logoaudiometría por vía ósea en pacientes con hípoacusias sensoriales y conductivas a fin de obtener una prueba que ayude en el diagnóstico y encamine a una adecuada rehabilitación. Las pruebas se realizaron en tres audiómetros de tres unidades médicas diferentes en tres grupos de pacientes, uno con perdida conductiva, otro sensorial y el tercero con audición normal. Se obtuvo un 97 por ciento de sensibilidad y 96.6 por ciento de especificidad de la prueba. Aunque son resultados preliminares, se concluye que la prueba es útil para la detección de reserva coclear en pacientes con pérdidas auditivas severas y profundas, sobre todo en pacientes con patología de oído medio
Subject(s)
Humans , Male , Female , Adolescent , Adult , Middle Aged , Audiometry, Speech/instrumentation , Audiometry, Speech/methods , Deafness/diagnosis , Hearing Tests , Hearing Tests/instrumentation , Hearing Loss, Conductive/diagnosisABSTRACT
Se describen los procedimientos, métodos y resultados en la deternimación del umbral auditivo para el habla en español. Se detallan los fundamentos teóricos de la prueba, la cual nos permite contar con un procedimiento de valoración clínica similar al SRT (Speech Reception Threoshold): así mismo se llega a la conclusión de que el material adecuado para esta prueba son las bisilábicas de 5, 6 y 7 fonemas; este material constituye nuestro equivalente a las 36 palabras espondáicas del inglés. Para fundamentarlo, se realizó un análisis de correlación entre los valores del umbral medido y 3 valores de la audimetría tonal (500, 1K y 2KHz); estos resultados concuerdan muy bien con los publicados por Carhart, para las espondáicas en inglés.