Ten years' experience with bone conduction hearing aids in the Western Cape, South Africa.
Silva Kuschke, Christine Rogers, Estie Meyer
PMID 36744472WHAT IT FOUND
133 bone-conduction hearing devices were fitted at one children's hospital over six years: 104 on softbands and 29 permanent implants.
Conductive hearing loss was the most common type, and device issuance fell during 2020.
Key findings
01The audiology department fitted 133 bone-conduction hearing devices between 2016 and 2021: 104 on softbands and 29 permanent implants.
02Most device recipients had conductive hearing loss (53.4%; n = 71), and 27.1% (n = 36) had single-sided hearing loss.
03Bone-conduction device issuance decreased during 2020, which the authors attribute to de-escalated outpatient services and restricted access to nonemergency healthcare.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
This is a single hospital's retrospective database review, so the counts may not reflect other services or private-sector care. Purposive sampling was used, and the paper does not report how many children were excluded or how missing data were handled. The analysis is descriptive; there is no control group, no pre- and post-measure and no comparison of softband with implant outcomes. The paper counts devices issued, not always unique children, so the exact number of children represented may not be clear. No speech, language, hearing, school or device-benefit outcomes are reported, so the summary cannot support clinical effectiveness.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read this as evidence that bone-conduction hearing aids improve speech, language or school outcomes. The paper reports only descriptive counts of children seen and devices fitted, not patient outcomes.