A NEW MORE POWERFUL BONE-ANCHORED HEARING-AID - FIRST RESULTS

In a pilot study seven subjects were asked to use a new more powerful bone-anchored hearing aid, the BAHA cordelle, for 5 days. All seven ha d a moderate or severe sensorineural component in their hearing loss a nd had been using a BAHA superbass on a daily basis for more than 2 ye ars. Free-field thresholds and speech recognition were measured with t he BAHA superbass and with the BAHA cordelle. A questionnaire was also filled in to obtain subjective information about speech recognition w ith the BAHA superbass compared to the BAHA cordelle. Aided thresholds in the high frequency range with the BAHA cordelle were better than w ith the BAHA superbass. In six of the seven subjects there was signifi cant improvement in the speech recognition score with the BAHA cordell e. These six subjects expressed preference for the BAHA cordelle.