Effectiveness of Frequency-Lowering Hearing Aids and Electric Acoustic Stimulation Cochlear Implant for Treating People with a Severe-To-Profound High-Frequency Hearing Loss

Objectives The objective of this research project was to compare the effectiveness of frequency transposition frequency compression hearing aids and the electric acoustic stimulation EAS cochlear implant to improve speech recognition in participants with a sensorineural severe to profound high frequency hearing loss HFHL Design Ten adults with a severe to profound HFHL were recruited They were all tested with frequency compression and frequency transposition hearing aids following an ABAC single subject design four week baselines were completed with their own hearing aids followed by eight week trials with each device One participant also received an EAS implant after hearing aid trials Follow up time ranged from to weeks Speech recognition was measured each week using sentence and monosyllable lists in quiet and in noise The subjective benefit with each technology was assessed with standardized questionnaires Complementary data about the EAS implant effectiveness were also extracted from our database of EAS users nbsp Results Frequency lowering FL hearing aids improved speech recognition in five participants when compared to conventional hearing aids Others experienced either no gain or some degradation in speech recognition when using a FL algorithm Most participants reported better speech perception in everyday listening situations with FL hearing aids Still the participant who received an EAS implant obtained a greater improvement in speech recognition and reported a better benefit with this technology Data collected from our database of EAS patients validated that the EAS participant was representative of our EAS users rsquo population Conclusion The EAS implant appears as the first indication for treating people with a severe to profound HFHL it is also the costliest and most invasive alternative Thus and considering the significant benefit some participants obtained with FL hearing aids trials using these technologies should be considered on an individual basis prior to implantation