A Comparative Study on Hearing Aid Benefits of Digital Hearing Aid Use (BTE) from Six Months to Two Years

Verma, Lukeshwari; Sanju, Himanshu Kumar; Scaria, Bibina; Awasthi, Mayank; Ravichandran, Aparna; Ashritha, Kaki; Prakash, S. G. R.

doi:10.1055/s-0036-1592117

Cited by 11 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…Thus, such a methodology proposed by the authors could be one of the core applications for HA fitting. Moreover, as indicated in some reports, a more extended observation of the HA use benefit should be considered [51]. Undoubtedly, implementing the application in mobile form on a smartphone is also a future development area for the method.…”

Section: Conclusion and Future Research Aspectsmentioning

confidence: 95%

Combining MUSHRA Test and Fuzzy Logic in the Evaluation of Benefits of Using Hearing Prostheses

Szymański,

Poremski,

Kostek

2023

Electronics

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Assessing the effectiveness of hearing aid fittings based on the benefits they provide is crucial but intricate. While objective metrics of hearing aids like gain, frequency response, and distortion are measurable, they do not directly indicate user benefits. Hearing aid performance assessment encompasses various aspects, such as compensating for hearing loss and user satisfaction. The authors suggest enhancing the widely used APHAB (Abbreviated Profile of Hearing Aid Benefit) questionnaire by integrating it with the MUSHRA test. APHAB, a self-completed questionnaire for users, evaluates specific sound scenarios on a seven-point scale, with each point described by a letter, percentage, and description. Given the complexities, especially for older users, we propose converting the seven-point APHAB scale to a clearer 100-point MUSHRA scale using fuzzy logic rules. The paper starts with presenting the goals of the study, focused on the assessment of the benefits of hearing aid use, especially in the case of the elderly population. The introductory part includes an overview of methods for evaluating the effectiveness of hearing aid use. Then, the methodology for the data collection is presented. This is followed by a method modification that combines the MUSHRA (MUltiple Stimuli with Hidden Reference and Anchor) test and fuzzy logic processing and the commonly used hearing aid benefit assessment questionnaire, APHAB (Abbreviated Profile of Hearing Aid Benefit). The results of such a process are examined. A summary of the findings is given in the form of fuzzy logic-based rules, followed by a short discussion. Finally, the overall conclusion and possible future directions for the method development are presented.

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Section: Conclusion and Future Research Aspectsmentioning

confidence: 95%

Combining MUSHRA Test and Fuzzy Logic in the Evaluation of Benefits of Using Hearing Prostheses

Szymański,

Poremski,

Kostek

2023

Electronics

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“…Real-world data have high ecological validity (Verma et al 2017;Hicks et al 2019) but also lack control for when, where, and how much data are logged. In that sense, a limitation of this study is that some participants collected less data than others.…”

Section: Limitationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Measuring and modeling context-dependent preferences for hearing aid settings

Pasta

Petersen

Jensen

et al. 2022

User Model User-Adap Inter

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Despite having individual perceptual preferences toward sounds, hearing aid users often end up with default hearing aid settings that have no contextual awareness. However, the introduction of smartphone-connected hearing aids has enabled a rethinking of hearing aids as user-adaptive systems considering both individual and contextual differences. In this study, we aimed to investigate the feasibility of such context-aware system for providing hearing aid users with a number of relevant hearing aid settings to choose from. During normal real-world hearing aid usage, we applied a smartphone-based method for capturing participants’ listening experience and audiological preference for different intervention levels of three audiological parameters (Noise Reduction, Brightness, Soft Gain). Concurrently, we collected contextual data as both self-reports (listening environment and listening intention) and continuous data logging of the acoustic environment (sound pressure level, signal-to-noise ratio). First, we found that having access to different intervention levels of the Brightness and Soft Gain parameters affected listening satisfaction. Second, for all three audiological parameters, the perceived usefulness of having access to different intervention levels was significantly modulated by context. Third, contextual data improved the prediction of both explicit and implicit intervention level preferences. Our findings highlight that context has a significant impact on hearing aid preferences across participants and that contextual data logging can help reduce the space of potential interventions in a user-adaptive system so that the most useful and preferred settings can be offered. Moreover, the proposed mixed-effects model is suitable for capturing predictions on an individual level and could also be expanded to predictions on a group level by including relevant user features.

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“… Karawani et al (2018a) showed that satisfaction with HAs increased over the course of 6 months. Verma et al (2017) measured subjective benefits of the use of HAs at 6 months, 1 year, 1.5 years, and 2 years using the Hearing Aid Benefit Questionnaire, and showed high satisfaction scores in aided situations. However, benefits varied depending on whether the listening background was quiet, noisy or music.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Auditory Perceptual Exercises in Adults Adapting to the Use of Hearing Aids

Karah

Karawani

2022

Front. Psychol.

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Older adults with age-related hearing loss often use hearing aids (HAs) to compensate. However, certain challenges in speech perception, especially in noise still exist, despite today’s HA technology. The current study presents an evaluation of a home-based auditory exercises program that can be used during the adaptation process for HA use. The home-based program was developed at a time when telemedicine became prominent in part due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The study included 53 older adults with age-related symmetrical sensorineural hearing loss. They were divided into three groups depending on their experience using HAs. Group 1: Experienced users (participants who used bilateral HAs for at least 2 years). Group 2: New users (participants who were fitted with bilateral HAs for the first time). Group 3: Non-users. These three groups underwent auditory exercises for 3 weeks. The auditory tasks included auditory detection, auditory discrimination, and auditory identification, as well as comprehension with basic (syllables) and more complex (sentences) stimuli, presented in quiet and in noisy listening conditions. All participants completed self-assessment questionnaires before and after the auditory exercises program and underwent a cognitive test at the end. Self-assessed improvements in hearing ability were observed across the HA users groups, with significant changes described by new users. Overall, speech perception in noise was poorer than in quiet. Speech perception accuracy was poorer in the non-users group compared to the users in all tasks. In sessions where stimuli were presented in quiet, similar performance was observed among new and experienced uses. New users performed significantly better than non-users in all speech in noise tasks; however, compared to the experienced users, performance differences depended on task difficulty. The findings indicate that HA users, even new users, had better perceptual performance than their peers who did not receive hearing aids.

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A Comparative Study on Hearing Aid Benefits of Digital Hearing Aid Use (BTE) from Six Months to Two Years

Cited by 11 publications

References 17 publications

Combining MUSHRA Test and Fuzzy Logic in the Evaluation of Benefits of Using Hearing Prostheses

Combining MUSHRA Test and Fuzzy Logic in the Evaluation of Benefits of Using Hearing Prostheses

Measuring and modeling context-dependent preferences for hearing aid settings

Auditory Perceptual Exercises in Adults Adapting to the Use of Hearing Aids

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