Residual hearing as an indicator of speech understanding with the Cochlear Implant

Introduction A correlation between pre- and postoperative speech understanding after cochlear implantation has already been demonstrated. In the work of Hoppe et al. a predictor for the determination of postoperative Freiburg monosyllabic score (FBE) 6 months after initial fitting (EA) was established. The age, maximum score for phonemically balanced words (EVmax) and the preoperative FBE at 65 dB with hearing aid (HG) are required. [1] In this paper, the FBE is calculated using the predictor and compared with the data.

Methods Data was retrospectively collected from 161 patients aged 18-86 years between January 2015-August 2022. We Recorded: Age, preoperative data (FBE with HG at 65 dB, EVmax) and postoperative data (FBE≥6 months after EA).

Results 72 patients were analyzed. 61% (44/72) achieved an EVmax>0% and could therefore be applied to the predictor. 98% (43/44) were able to achieve a better EV65 with CI postoperatively than the preoperative EV65 with HG. 84% achieved an EV65 with CI that was equal to or better than their preoperative EVmax. In the work of Hoppe et al. 75% achieved the predictor or were max. 12 percentage points below. In our analysis, this applied to 77%.

Discussion The results of our study show that residual hearing can be used as an indicator for postoperative FBE with CI. However, other influencing factors such as the duration of deafness and the characteristics of the FBE must be taken into account in the evaluation [2] [3].

Publication History

Article published online:
19 April 2024

• References

• 1 Hoppe U. et al. Cochlear Implantation in Candidates With Moderate-to-Severe Hearing Loss and Poor Speech Perception. 2021
• 2 Blamey P. et al. Factors affecting auditorxy performance of postlinguistically deaf adults using cochlear implants. 1996
• 3 Winkler A. et al. Test-Retest-Reliabilität des Freiburger Einsilbertests. 2016