SSD-EAS: Electric-acoustic Stimulation with Contralateral Normal Hearing

In patients with residual hearing in the low frequencies, cochlear implantation in terms of hearing preservation offers an adequate treatment option. Several studies showed that electric-acoustic stimulation (EAS) can improve speech perception in noise and offers better sound quality (especially in enjoyment of music) when compared to users of cochlear implants (CIs) with only electric stimulation. In single-sided deafness (SSD)-patients electric stimulation is known to improve sound localization abilities and speech perception in noise.

Little experience exists with CI-users who take advantage of EAS in one ear and have normal hearing in the opposite ear. Aim of the present study was to assess hearing abilities in these rare SSD-EAS-subjects.

Four EAS users with contralateral normal hearing and one EAS-patient with mild hearing loss on the contralateral side were enrolled in this study. Speech perception was assessed in noise (Oldenburg sentence test, OLSA) in different spatial noise conditions. Speech perception threshold measurements were conducted with EAS stimulation and compared with acoustic stimulation of the contralateral ear alone and with a normal hearing control group.

In situations with spatially separated masker conditions, speech reception thresholds improved with EAS from 0.6dB to 4.6dB. In co-located masker conditions, only a slight effect was seen with an improvement of less than 1dB. Depending on the spatial noise conditions tested EAS users performed 4.6dB up to 7.5dB worse than the normal hearing control group.

EAS can improve speech perception in noise for patients with low-frequency residual hearing in the ipsilateral ear and contralateral normal hearing. Cochlea Implantation can improve speech understanding in SSD-EAS-patients.

Poster-PDF A-1378.PDF

Publication History

Article published online:
10 June 2020