Experience of applying phoneme perception test to the process of hearing aid selection and fitting

Aim. To study the effectiveness of phoneme perception test for evaluation of different hearing aids’ types performance

Methods. Hearing aid was provided to 100 patients aged 45-59 years with bilateral chronic sensorineural moderate and moderate-to-severe hearing loss. 4 equal groups were formed depending on the type of a hearing aid - behind-the-ear with standard (BTE) and slim (BTEslim) tubes, receiver-in-the-canal (RIC), and completely-in-the-canal (CIC). All devices had comparable characteristics and were fitted monaurally. The efficacy was evaluated by phoneme perceprion test, which was performed before and 12 weeks after the correction (with and without the hearing aid).

Results. The detection test before correction revealed 38 deviations from the expected numbers, after 3-month adaptation - 28 without the device and 23 with it reflecting the significant dynamics compared to baseline parameters in CIC group (p <0.05). Grade of distinction before correction was 4.3 in average (σ=1.2) without significant intergroup difference, after 3-month adaptation - 4.9 (σ=1.0) without the device with significantly higher numbers in RIC group (p <0.05). In hearing aid the average result was 5.04 (σ=1.0) with significantly higher numbers in RIC (p <0.01) and CIC (p <0.05) groups. The recognition test before correction revealed 35 deviations, after it - 24 without the hearing aid and 25 with it without significant intergroup difference and dynamics (p >0.05). There was significant correlation between all tests’ results.

Conclusion. In comparison of the types of hearing aid the recognition test is the most informative and its results demonstrate advantages of RIC and CIC for such patient cohort.