Effects of hearing aid settings for electric-acoustic stimulation.
BACKGROUND
Cochlear implant (CI) recipients with postoperative hearing preservation may utilize an ipsilateral bimodal listening condition known as electric-acoustic stimulation (EAS). Studies on EAS have reported significant improvements in speech perception abilities over CI-alone listening conditions. Adjustments to the hearing aid (HA) settings to match prescription targets routinely used in the programming of conventional amplification may provide additional gains in speech perception abilities.


OBJECTIVE
Investigate the difference in users' speech perception scores when listening with the recommended HA settings for EAS patients versus HA settings adjusted to match National Acoustic Laboratories' nonlinear fitting procedure version 1 (NAL-NL1) targets.


METHODS
Prospective analysis of the influence of HA settings.


METHODS
Nine EAS recipients with greater than 12 mo of listening experience with the DUET speech processor.


METHODS
Subjects were tested in the EAS listening condition with two different HA setting configurations. Speech perception materials included consonant-nucleus-consonant (CNC) words in quiet, AzBio sentences in 10-talker speech babble at a signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of +10, and the Bamford-Kowal-Bench sentences in noise (BKB-SIN) test.


METHODS
The speech perception performance on each test measure was compared between the two HA configurations.


RESULTS
Subjects experienced a significant improvement in speech perception abilities with the HA settings adjusted to match NAL-NL1 targets over the recommended HA settings.


CONCLUSIONS
EAS subjects have been shown to experience improvements in speech perception abilities when listening to ipsilateral combined stimulation. This population's abilities may be underestimated with current HA settings. Tailoring the HA output to the patient's individual hearing loss offers improved outcomes on speech perception measures.
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Department of Otolaryngology/Head and Neck Surgery.
Margaret T
MT
Dillon
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Department of Otolaryngology/Head and Neck Surgery.
Emily
E
Buss
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Department of Otolaryngology/Head and Neck Surgery.
Harold C
HC
Pillsbury
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Department of Otolaryngology/Head and Neck Surgery.
Oliver F
OF
Adunka
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Department of Otolaryngology/Head and Neck Surgery.
Craig A
CA
Buchman
Department of Audiology, UNC Healthcare.
Marcia C
MC
Adunka
D000161:Acoustic Stimulation / Q000379:methods*; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001309:Auditory Threshold; D003054:Cochlear Implants; D004558:Electric Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D006310:Hearing Aids; D034381:Hearing Loss / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000534:rehabilitation*; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D011446:Prospective Studies; D017755:Prosthesis Fitting / Q000379:methods / Q000592:standards; D013067:Speech Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D013069:Speech Reception Threshold Test / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D016896:Treatment Outcome