View clinical trials related to Deafness.
Filter by:The LittlEARS Auditory Questionnaire is designed to assess the development of the auditory behavior in children during the first two (hearing) years. The questionnaire has been validated on children with normal hearing whose native language is German. A comparison was made between North American English speaking children with normal hearing and found that it was consistent with the German data. This study is to validate the questionnaire in children with cochlear implants.
The purpose of this study is to investigate the rate of false-positive results in Newborn Universal Hearing Screening Programs and it´s possible causes.
The purpose of this investigation is to collect feasibility data to assess the safety and efficacy of the Vibrant Soundbridge (VSB), a medical device designed to provide benefit in aided hearing thresholds, speech perception and sound quality to certain individuals with hearing loss with minimal changes in residual hearing. The VSB is currently indicated for adults with moderate-to-severe sensorineural hearing loss. Under the present investigation, adults with conductive and mixed hearing losses who are not successful users of traditional amplification will be assessed.
Wind-noise is highly disturbing to hearing impaired individuals wearing hearing aids who wish to participate in outdoor conversations where wind is present or during activities such as walking or running. In these situations, wind noise significantly reduces signal-to-noise ratio and, consequently, the intelligibility of speech and sounds may be significantly impaired. This negative effect is exacerbated with the use of directional microphone schemes in the hearing iads. The objective of this project is to determine the efficacy of the MH Acoustics' multi-microphone wind-noise reduction invention for the digital hearing aids market. MH Acoustics' wind noise reduction technology is unique since it provides instantaneous convergence while maintaining directionality of the microphone array. Current commercial technologies do not provide this feature. We are hypothesizing that, due to the design of the algorithm, speech perception ability and sound quality perception will be better than that available with traditional directional and/or omnidirectional microphone schemes in windy environments.
This study is being conducted to evaluate the benefits of in-the-ear vs. open-fit behind-the-ear hearing aids. We want to learn more about which patients prefer each type, so we can make better choices about which type of hearing aid is best for which patients. Participants in this study will try three different sets of hearing aids for 2 months each, then we will evaluate the benefit of each type. Participants must be Veterans who are eligible for audiology care at one of the three participating sites.
Many older subjects experience difficulty in understanding speech in noisy environments. Part of this problem is related to changes that occur in the ear with age and compromise the hearing of high-pitched sounds. Another part of the problem with speech understanding relates to changes with age in the neural circuits of the brain that process different speech sounds. Evidence suggests that these changes in neural circuits are particularly large if hearing loss is present. Thus, while hearing aids may help compensate for hearing deficits by amplifying speech sounds, additional treatment is necessary to restore optimal neural connections in the brain so that speech sounds can be accurately distinguished from each other. We are developing PC-based training programs in an attempt to restore optimal neural connections. The current randomized trial will evaluate whether two months of training to improve the ability to discriminate different consonant sounds in noise will also improve the understanding of continuous speech and enhance auditory memory and other high-level auditory functions.
Study Objectives: - 1. To examine the extent to which noise typical of nursing units reduces speech intelligibility in acutely ill hospitalized patients - 2. To examine the extent to which noise typical of nursing units impairs recall in acutely ill hospitalized patients - 3. To quantify severity of reduced performance associated with age, familiarity with the healthcare setting, hearing and health status. Plan: One hundred and twenty inpatients from the four medical/surgical nursing units at the Portland VA Medical Center, 60 with normal hearing and 60 with hearing impairment will be recruited to participate in the study. Following assessment to ascertain eligibility and obtaining informed consent, patients will be tested in a sound booth housed at the National Center for Rehabilitative Auditory Research (NCRAR). Designed so that each patient serves as his or her own control, we can accommodate considerable baseline variability between patients without adversely affecting required sample size. Patients' performance in speech intelligibility and recall tests will be measured using a constant level of speech, in controlled environments of no noise (baseline), white noise, hospital noise and hospital noise with speech, all delivered via headphones in pseudo-random order. Performance will be measured in each type of noise at decibel levels equivalent to those currently experienced on nursing units and at lower levels that prior studies have shown are more conducive to effective communication By selecting measures that are particularly relevant to the safe care of hospitalized patients, and that have been studied extensively in healthy populations in highly controlled conditions, we expect to find compelling and unambiguous evidence that hospitalized patients correctly hear and recall very little of what is said to them during their hospitalizations. The majority of hospitalized patients stay on acute care nursing units during most or all of their hospitalizations, making this an appropriate population to study in the context of their responses to the noises typical in these environments. Perhaps most importantly, this study will heighten awareness of health-care personnel to the levels of impairment suffered by their patients - both in their ability to correctly interpret speech and to recall it - in the typical noisy environments of nursing units.
The purpose is to test the balance of children with unilateral,bilateral cochlear implants and patients having unilateral implants before,bilateral implants after surgery,using the Bruininks-Oseretsky Test 2nd ed. to find out if the cochlear implants have an effect.
The purpose of this study is to evaluate whether the Iowa/Nucleus 10/10 mm in one ear, in conjunction with a Nucleus Freedom implant in the other ear can provide useful binaural hearing in pediatric subjects who have bilateral severe to profound hearing loss and meet the criteria for cochlear implantation. The Iowa/Nucleus 10/10 mm cochlear implant has a short, 10 mm electrode array that it is inserted only into the more basal region of the cochlea. Unlike a conventional cochlear implant, the Iowa/Nucleus 10/10 mm is expected to preserve the regions of the cochlear partition that are apical to the electrode, thus leaving them available for possible future advances in the field of otolaryngology and hearing devices, such as mammalian hair cell regeneration techniques or improved implantable hearing devices. The Iowa/Nucleus 10/10 mm will be implanted in the contralateral ear from the Nucleus Freedom electrode array as a means of providing bilateral stimulation of auditory pathways while preserving the middle and apical regions of the scala media.
The objective of this multisite study is to evaluate the performance of the Nucleus Freedom cochlear implant system in a large population of sequentially implanted pediatric subjects.