Self-motion with Hearing Impairment and (Directional) Hearing Aids.
Maartje M E Hendrikse, Theda Eichler, Volker Hohmann and 1 others
PMID 35341403WHAT IT FOUND
Older hearing-impaired people turned their heads almost entirely instead of their eyes to look at target speakers, unlike normal-hearing people.
Hearing loss compensation with or without a directional algorithm produced similar head movement, and the algorithm's estimated benefit averaged 0.2 dB.
Key findings
01Hearing-impaired participants did almost all of the movement needed to look at a target with their head, not their eyes.
02When added to hearing loss compensation, the directional algorithm did not change self-motion, and its average estimated speech-to-noise improvement was 0.2 dB.
03Hearing-impaired participants' head movements produced a slightly higher speech-to-noise level than normal-hearing participants' movements, 0.5 dB versus 0.2 dB relative to facing straight ahead.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The study was a laboratory test, not everyday hearing aid use. Participants did not wear their own hearing aids, and the directional algorithm was run on a computer. All hearing-impaired participants wore glasses, so the study could not separate the effect of glasses from the effect of hearing loss on head-eye movement. The unaided group had milder hearing loss because it included inexperienced hearing-aid users, so groups were not perfectly matched for hearing loss. Noise levels were adjusted individually to make the task understandable, which reduced the realism of the environments. For the head-eye ratio, 65% of data points were excluded on average, so the measure focused on final orientation rather than all movement. The speech-to-noise differences were small: 0.3 dB between hearing-impaired and normal-hearing groups and 0.2 dB for the directional algorithm on average. Participants had only brief familiarisation with the directional algorithm, so longer use might have produced different movement.
Declared interests
No conflict-of-interest statement is included in the supplied text. The publication types list research support from a non-U.S. government source.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that directional hearing aids improve everyday listening or that patients should be taught to turn their head to help a directional algorithm. The study tested a laboratory directional algorithm added to hearing loss compensation, and it did not change self-motion; the average estimated speech-to-noise improvement was 0.2 dB.