Adults with mild hearing impairment: Measuring real-world hearing performance

Abstract

The World Health Organization recognizes acquired hearing impairment as the third leading cause of disability worldwide, with a mild hearing impairment the most prevalent.Between 1 in 3 and 1 in 5 adults have a mild hearing impairment, with prevalence rising with age. Studies of other age-related changes, for example in cognition and physical activities, suggest that declines in these functions may be exacerbated if hearing impairment is not addressed at an early stage.Few studies, however, have focused specifically on the implications of the early stages of hearing impairment in older adults. The research program in this thesis investigated the impact that a mild hearing impairment may have on an individual's daily listening situations and if the most common intervention strategy -the provision of hearing aids -is beneficial. An initial systematized review found the limited research literature available indicated large variation amongst adults with mild hearing impairment in many aspects and in the weak correlations between current common audiological assessments and selfreported hearing difficulties. It also found some evidence that hearing aids could be beneficial for this clinical population but reports of hearing aid use, benefit and satisfaction were variable.The first empirical study in this research program utilized an international database to investigate hearing aid use amongst adults with mild hearing impairment. Retrospective fitting and data logging hearing aid use information was extracted from a total of 8,489 participants with bilateral fittings. Analysis of average hearing aid use showed that the participants with mild hearing impairment used their hearing aids as much as those with a moderate degree, on average 8.5 hours per day. These findings support the recommendation of hearing aids for adults with mild hearing impairment.A further need identified in the initial review was for evaluation of the real-world listening experiences and performance of people with mild hearing impairment. Such information has commonly been evaluated using self-report questionnaires. However, these require individuals to give global reports based on their memory of specific listening situations which may date back a number of weeks or months. To reduce the recall bias inherent in

Do Hearing Aids Address Real-World Hearing Difficulties for Adults With Mild Hearing Impairment? Results From a Pilot Study Using Ecological Momentary Assessment

“…The findings from this previous EMA study demonstrated that in 91% of the 962 speech-listening surveys collected, speech understanding was rated as either ''75%'' or ''100%,'' and in only 9% of listening events, speech understanding was rated as ''0%,'' ''25%,'' or ''50%'' (Timmer, 2017). However, although the participants self-reported very good or excellent speech understanding in their common listening events, they also rated the events as needing relatively more effort to reach that level.…”