Subscribe to RSS
Download PDF
DOI: 10.1055/s-2004-823048
Factors Affecting Long-Term Hearing Aid Success
Remembering Tom Tillman My memory of Tom Tillman is of a kind, patient, easy-going man with high standards and expectations for his students, but no higher than those to which he held himself accountable. He had a knack for attending to detail while simultaneously not losing sight of the big picture. Throughout my time at Northwestern University, and in contact with him afterwards, I always found him a gentleman and a scholar.Larry E. HumesPublication History
Publication Date:
02 April 2004 (online)
The present article examines variables that contribute to differences in long-term hearing-aid success. Long-term hearing aid success is defined on the basis of the completion of a self-report Hearing Aid Interview (HAI) completed by 167 elderly hearing-aid wearers following an average of two years of hearing-aid use. Once the groups of successful and unsuccessful hearing-aid wearers have been identified, group differences for an assortment of variables measured prior to the hearing-aid fitting were examined, and a discriminant analysis was performed. In addition, rather than rely on the classification of wearers as successful or unsuccessful based on a somewhat arbitrary criterion HAI score, a linear regression analysis was conducted to predict the actual HAI score. Across all three statistical approaches to data analysis, the primary variables identified as potential predictors of long-term success were the amount of prior hearing-aid experience, the amount of high-frequency hearing loss, and a factor representing a combination of auditory-processing skills and hearing-aid expectations. Some other variables emerged from various analyses, but not consistently so.
KEYWORDS
Hearing aids - outcome measures - benefit - satisfaction - elderly
REFERENCES
- 1 Humes L E. Issues in evaluating the effectiveness of hearing aids in the elderly: what to measure and when. Semin Hear. 2001; 22 303-314
- 2 Humes L E. Modeling and predicting hearing-aid outcome. Trends in Amplification. 2003; 7 41-75
- 3 Tillman T W, Carhart R, Olsen W O. Hearing aid efficiency in a competing speech situation. J Speech Hear Res. 1970; 13 789-811
- 4 Studebaker G A, Sherbecoe R L, McDaniel D M, Gray G A. Age-related changes in monosyllabic word recognition performance when audibility is held constant. J Am Acad Audiol. 1997; 8 150-162
- 5 Studebaker G A, Gray G A, Branch W E. Prediction and statistical evaluation of speech recognition test scores. J Am Acad Audiol. 1999; 10 355-370
- 6 Humes L E. Factors underlying the speech-recognition performance of elderly hearing-aid wearers. J Acoust Soc Am. 2002; 112 1112-1132
- 7 Humes L E. Exploring measures of hearing-aid outcome. J Am Acad Audiol. 1999; 10 26-39
- 8 Humes L E, Garner C B, Wilson D L, Barlow N N. Hearing-aid outcome measures following one month of hearing aid use by the elderly. J Speech Lang Hear Res. 2001; 44 469-486
- 9 Cox R M, Hyde M, Gatehouse S et al. Optimal outcome measures, research priorities and international cooperation. Ear Hear. 2000; 21 106S-115S
- 10 Gatehouse S. Glasgow Hearing Aid Benefit Profile: Derivation and validation of a client-centered outcome measure for hearing aid services. J Am Acad Audiol. 1999; 10 80-103
- 11 Demorest M, Erdman S. Development of the Communication Profile for the Hearing Impaired. J Speech Hear Disord. 1987; 52 129-143
- 12 Humes L E, Wilson D L, Humes A C. Examination of the differences between successful and unsuccessful elderly hearing-aid candidates matched for age, hearing loss and gender. Int J Audiol. 2003; 42 432-441
Larry E HumesPh.D.
Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences
Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47405
Email: humes@indiana.edu