Benefits of a Cochlear Implant in SSD Adults: 1m, 6m and 12m Results of Speech Perception, Localization Ability and Tinnitus

Objective Treatment options for patients with single-sided deafness (SSD) are: conventional contralateral routing of signal (CROS) hearing aid, bone conduction implant (BCI) and cochlear implant (CI). Only a CI allows restoration of binaural hearing. We compare outcomes with CROS and BCD to CI. Methods Outcome measures are assessed pre- and postoperatively 1, 6 and 12 months after activation of CI. Twelve SSD patients participate in the study. All patients completed the 6m examinations, and 10patients the 12m examinations, 2 patients opted out from the 12m visit due to personal time constraints. Speech reception thresholds (SRT) unaided and CI-aided are measured for two different noises (Olnoise and 2-talker babble noise (TTBN)) in 5 different presentation conditions (S_SSDN_AH, S₀N_SSD, S₀N₀, S₀N_AH, S_AHN_SSD). Thresholds are obtained using a modified Oldenburg sentence test (OLSA). Results: Twelve months after CI activation, patients performed much better with CI than preoperatively unaided: SRT improvements in TTBN revealed a mean head shadow effect of 9.7 dB (for S_SSDN_AH), a mean summation effect of 5.1 dB (for S₀N₀), and a mean squelch effect of 5.7 dB (for S₀N_SSD)_. The use of the CI was favorable in all tested presentation conditions, even in S_AHN_SSD with a mean SRT improvement of 4.9 dB. Localization ability and tinnitus had improved significantly by 12m. Conclusion Our results show benefits in speech comprehension in noise with CI in all five different presentation conditions revealing the presence of head shadow effect as well as binaural summation and squelch effects. Benefits in localization ability and tinnitus improvement are significant.

Poster-PDF A-1464.pdf

The study is supported by MED-EL Deutschland GmbH.

Publication History

Article published online:
13 May 2021