title: The super-bass bone-anchored hearing aid compared to conventional hearing aids. Audiological results and the patients' opinions.
abstract: Twelve patients with severe mixed hearing loss (PTA ranging from 70 to 108 dB HL) were provided with the percutaneous 'super-bass HC 220' bone-anchored hearing aid (BAHA) to replace their former hearing aid. Five had previously worn an air-conduction hearing aid (behind-the-ear type, BTE) which could no longer be used because of recurrent otorrhoea; the others had previously worn a conventional (transcutaneous) bone-conduction hearing aid (CBHA) which had caused serious complaints, such as headaches or skin irritation. Free-field speech audiometry in the subgroup of patients who used to wear a CBHA revealed that the maximum intelligibility score with the BAHA was equal to or better than that obtained with the CBHA (range from 0 to +27%). In three of the five patients who used to wear a BTE, the speech scores were poorer with the BAHA than with the BTE (range from -13 to -40%). For the remaining two patients, the difference in scores was 0 and +10%. In conclusion, speech recognition with the BAHA HC220 in the patients with severe mixed hearing loss was comparable to, or better than, that with a CBHA. Compared to an air-conduction hearing aid, the results may be considerably poorer. The results of the questionnaire were in good agreement with the measurements and support the conclusions.
authors.affiliation: ENT Department, University Hospital, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: A F
authors.initials: AF
authors.lastname: Snik
authors.forename: F F
authors.initials: FF
authors.lastname: Jorritsma
authors.forename: C W
authors.initials: CW
authors.lastname: Cremers
authors.forename: A J
authors.initials: AJ
authors.lastname: Beynon
authors.forename: N W
authors.initials: NW
authors.lastname: van den Berge
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001301:Audiometry, Pure-Tone; D001309:Auditory Threshold; D001844:Bone Conduction; D002648:Child; D012048:Correction of Hearing Impairment; D004867:Equipment Design; D005069:Evaluation Studies as Topic; D005260:Female; D006310:Hearing Aids / Q000592:standards*; D006311:Hearing Disorders / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000601:surgery; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D013063:Speech Discrimination Tests; D013067:Speech Perception