The population of unilateral cochlear implant (CI) users with aidable residual hearing in the contralateral ear is continuously growing. Aiding the contralateral ear with a hearing aid has been shown to provide substantial benefit regarding speech intelligibility in quiet and in noise, sound quality, localization ability and listening effort. In this study, a dedicated hearing aid with the accompanying fitting prescription, tailored to the needs of bimodal listeners was evaluated in nine bimodal CI users. Speech intelligibility scores in noise revealed on-par performance of the dedicated bimodal fitting compared to the clinical standard prescription. 78% of the bimodal CI users preferred the dedicated bimodal fitting over the clinical standard. The minimal subject-specific finetuning effort required during the dedicated bimodal fitting process emphasizes the clinical efficiency.

Benefit of hearing aid use in the elderly: the impact of age, cognition and hearing impairment Il beneficio protesico e il ruolo delle abilità cognitive, dell'età e del deficit uditivo nel paziente anziano

Introduction Bone anchored hearing solutions are a well-known option for patients with a conductive, mixed conductive-sensorineural hearing loss and those with single-sided deafness. Objective The aim of the present study was to evaluate the Ponto bone-anchored hearing system in terms of behavioral performance and self-reported outcomes, by comparing unaided and aided performance (softband and abutment), as well as aided performance with the sound processor on softband (preoperatively) versus abutment (postoperatively). Methods Fourteen adult bone-anchored candidates, with either a bilateral (n = 12) or unilateral (n = 2) conductive or mixed hearing loss, participated in the present study. Sound-field hearing thresholds were evaluated unaided and aided (softband and abutment). A speech-in-noise test was also performed unaided and aided for two spatial configurations (S0N90; implanted side; S0N90; nonimplanted side). The Glasgow Health Status Inventory and the Speech, Spatial and Quality of sound questionnaires were administered pre- and postsurgery to compare quality of life and perceived unaided and aided performance. Skin reaction (Holgers scores) was evaluated at 15 days, 6 weeks, and 10 weeks after surgery. Results Significant improvements postoperatively relative to unaided were obtained for sound-field thresholds at all tested frequencies. Additionally, sound-field thresholds were significantly improved with the sound processor on abutment relative to the softband at frequencies > 1 kHz. Improved performance postoperatively relative to unaided was also obtained in the speech-in-noise test and in self-reported outcomes. Conclusions Improvements in behavioral performance and self-reported outcomes were obtained with the sound processor mounted on abutment.

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