Hearing performance versus severely-profoundly hearing-impaired patients with hearing aids

It is possible for most post-lingually deaf patients to attain significant open speech recognition following cochlear implantation. In contrast, many severely-profoundly sensorineural hearing-impaired patients receive no bene fit from their hearing aids, especially in situations with background noise . The aim of the study was to evaluate the speech recognition ability in qu iet and in noise of post-lingually deaf adults implanted with Combi 40/40cochlear implants versus severely-profoundly sensorineural hearing-impaired patients fitted with hearing aids. For this purpose, we tested two groups of patients: one that had received cochlear implants (n=22) and a group of subjects with severe-profound sensorineural hearing impairment, fitted with hearing aids (n=15). All of the patients were tested using the Hochmaier, Schultz, and Moser Discrimination Test in quiet and noise. The results of t he study demonstrate that most of our cochlear implant patients received a substantial benefit from their implant, achieving scores of 70 to 100 per c ent (mean, 90 per cent) for the numbers test and 10 to 72 per cent (mean, 4 3 per cent) for the monosyllable test 1 year after implantation. Even in si tuations with background noise, scores of 1 to 99 per cent (mean, 45.65 per cent) for a signal to noise ratio (SNR) of +15 dB 1 year following the imp lantation improved to 7 to 95 per cent (mean, 50.7 per cent) at 2 years and 8 to 99 per cent (mean, 60 per cent) at 3 years after implantation. These results are significantly (p<0.04) superior to the hearing aid patients' sc ores of 1 to 64.2 per cent (mean, 26.7 per cent) for a SNR of 15 dB. The re sults of the present study may have clinical implications in regard to sele ction of candidates for cochlear implantation.