Evaluation of Different Phone Solutions in CI and Hearing Aid Users and Bimodal Recipients

Advanced Bionics AG25 enrolled

Overview

Communication on telephone is challenging for people with hearing loss. For hearing aid users, for instance, the inventions for improving speech intelligibility on the phone range from an integrated tele coil and individual hearing programs to specially designed phone devices. No formal studies involving these devices have been carried out with CI users. Thus, this comparative study includes hearing aid as well as CI and bimodal users to evaluate different hearing solutions for communication on telephone in terms of intelligibility and ease of use.

Communication on telephone is challenging for people with hearing loss, due to a number of factors: * The lack of visual cues (lip-reading), * The lack of binaural abilities, * The presence of (loud) background noise in a variety of listening situations, * A modified speech signal due to reduced frequency bandwidth and * Difficulties coupling the phone to the CI. For hearing aid users, for instance, the inventions for improving speech intelligibility on the phone range from an integrated tele coil and individual hearing programs to specially designed phone devices. No formal studies involving these devices have been carried out with CI users. Thus, this comparative study includes hearing aid as well as CI and bimodal users to evaluate the different hearing solutions for communication on telephone in terms of intelligibility and ease of use: * Phonak DECT - cordless telephone for HA-, CI- users and bimodal users * Phonak EasyCall - accessories for Bluetooth capable mobile telephones for HA-, CI- and bimodal users * Phonak DuoPhone - streaming function, which provides the speech signal to both ears

Study Type

INTERVENTIONAL

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

OTHER

Masking

NONE

Enrollment

Interventions

standard telephone settingDEVICE

without streaming function

DECTDEVICE

cordless telephone (streaming to both hearing devices)

EasyCallDEVICE

accessories for Bluetooth capable mobile telephones (streaming to both hearing devices)

DuoPhoneDEVICE

streaming function, which provides the speech signal to both ears

Eligibility

Sex: ALLMin age: 18 YearsMax age: 80 Years

Medical Language ↔ Plain English

Inclusion Criteria: * Unilateral HA users with SRT of better (lower) than + 3 dB * Bilateral HA users with SRT of better (lower) than 0 dB * Unilateral CI users: Unilaterally implanted with an Advanced Bionics CII, HiRes90k or Advantage implant 1-year acclimatization time after implantation at least 20% correct for a sentence test delivered with a SNR of + 10 dB, or a SRT of better (lower) than + 15 dB * Bimodal (CI + HA) users: Unilaterally implanted with an Advanced Bionics CII, HiRes90k or Advantage implant CI side: at least 20% correct for a sentence test delivered with a SNR of + 10 dB, or a SRT of better (lower) than + 15 dB HA side: unaided threshold ≤ 80 dB at least for frequencies up to 500 Hz * All users: Informed Consent as documented by signature Ability for speech understanding in the presence of competing noise without any assistance from lip-reading Ability to give subjective feedback in a certain listening situation First language: German or Swiss-German Exclusion Criteria: * All users: Difficulties additional to hearing impairment that would interfere with the study procedures Acute inflammation or pain in head-/neck area Dizziness Age of participants \< 18 years Age of participants \> 80 years

Outcomes

Primary Outcomes

speech reception threshold (SRT) assessment with audiological measures

differences in speech reception threshold (SRT) on the phone in the presence of background noise between the Phonak DECT phone and a standard phone will be assessed with audiological measures.

Time frame: 6 months

Secondary Outcomes

Subjective ratings assessment with scaling

* differences in preference ratings in the presence of background noise between a standard phone, a standard phone + DuoPhone algorithm, the DECT-telephone * differences in preference ratings in the presence of background noise between a standard mobile phone, a standard mobile phone + DuoPhone algorithm and a standard mobile phone + EasyCall accessory