Hearing Loss, Binaural Clinical Trial
Official title:
Evaluation of Different Phone Solutions in CI and Hearing Aid Users and Bimodal Recipients
Communication on telephone is challenging for people with hearing loss. For hearing aid
users, for instance, the inventions for improving speech intelligibility on the phone range
from an integrated tele coil and individual hearing programs to specially designed phone
devices. No formal studies involving these devices have been carried out with CI users.
Thus, this comparative study includes hearing aid as well as CI and bimodal users to evaluate
different hearing solutions for communication on telephone in terms of intelligibility and
ease of use.
Communication on telephone is challenging for people with hearing loss, due to a number of
factors:
- The lack of visual cues (lip-reading),
- The lack of binaural abilities,
- The presence of (loud) background noise in a variety of listening situations,
- A modified speech signal due to reduced frequency bandwidth and
- Difficulties coupling the phone to the CI. For hearing aid users, for instance, the
inventions for improving speech intelligibility on the phone range from an integrated
tele coil and individual hearing programs to specially designed phone devices.
No formal studies involving these devices have been carried out with CI users.
Thus, this comparative study includes hearing aid as well as CI and bimodal users to evaluate
the different hearing solutions for communication on telephone in terms of intelligibility
and ease of use:
- Phonak DECT - cordless telephone for HA-, CI- users and bimodal users
- Phonak EasyCall - accessories for Bluetooth capable mobile telephones for HA-, CI- and
bimodal users
- Phonak DuoPhone - streaming function, which provides the speech signal to both ears
;