Comparative study of ADHEAR with conventional hearing aid and/or bone conductive hearing device (BCHD) in adults

Objective Comparison of the audiological data using ADHEAR hearing system to that of the BCHD and/or a conventional hearing aid.

Patients 1 patients with mild to moderate isolated conductive hearing loss and 7 patients with single-side deafness and contralateral mild to moderate conductive hearing loss were tested with the ADHEAR system with the BAHA Power 5 and/or with a conventional hearing aid.

A control group consisted of 10 patients with simulated unilateral occluded ear canal, which were tested with the ADHEAR System and the BAHA.

Intervention The air and bone conduction thresholds as well as free-field Freiburger monosyllable and polysyllable thresholds in quiet (S₀) and noise (S₀N₀) were evaluated in the three settings: unaided, with conventional BAHA and/or hearing aid and with the ADHEAR system. In both conditions, the S₀ and S₀N₀, the measurements were performed at a speech level of 65 and 80 dB, where in the S₀N₀ condition, a fixed noise level of 60 dB was used. Furthermore, an ADHEAR questionnaire and abbreviated profile of hearing aid benefit (APHAB) were assessed, before and after the fitting of the hearing system.

Results In the S₀ condition, the mean unaided free-field Freiburger monosyllable thresholds at 65 dB were improved in unilateral and bilateral mild to moderate conductive hearing loss with the ADHEAR system by 21 %, with BAHA by 34 % and with a conventional hearing aid by 28 %.

The sound localization, sound quality and the speech intelligibility in noise were siginficantly improved using the ADHEAR system (p < 0,001).

Conclusions The greatest benefit were observed inpatients with bilateral conductive hearing loss and patients with mild conductive hearings loss on one ear and deafness at the contralateral ear.

Poster-PDF A-1642.PDF

Publication History

Article published online:
10 June 2020