The Development of Graphical User Interfaces for Self-Adjustment of Cochlear Implant Processor Parameters

Introduction Smartphones become more and more common for patients to play an active role in the management of their own health. Also in the field of cochlear implants. However, to achieve a high acceptance and safe operation of such an APP, it is necessary to design intuitive user interfaces (UI) which allow easy access to system parameters. The main goal of the presented study was to evaluate and to compare two different UIs against each other with references to a current state of the art expert fitting.

Methods Two different UIs were explored in a group of bimodal CI subjects to determine, which of the two interfaces would be best suited for setting treble, bass, volume and the balance between the hearing aid and the cochlear implant. One of the UIs comprised a classical equalizer and volume dial approach, while the second UI followed a 2D-surface concept to manipulate the according sound parameters. The subjects changed their fitting parameters using both UIs in five different sound scenes. The self-determined settings for the different scenarios were stored and recalled at a later stage for direct comparisons.

Results Within minutes, the patients got accustomed to the concept of both UIs and generated their own parameter settings in the different testing scenes. While there was no clear advantage for one of the two UI concepts, it became apparent that most subjects rated their self-made program better than the clinical base-line program.

Conclusion  Self-adjustment of certain parameters seems feasible in cochlear implants. Most of the subject stated that the self-adjustment gave them the impression to reach better outcomes in difficult listening environments. This aspect is significant and shows that patient involvement in the fitting is likely to play a big role.

Publication History

Article published online:
12 May 2023