Version 1
: Received: 9 January 2023 / Approved: 12 January 2023 / Online: 12 January 2023 (01:48:00 CET)
How to cite:
Appaiah-Konganda, S.; Sharma, M.; Ibrahim, R.; Monaghan, J.J.M.; Newall, J.; Valderrama Valenzuela, J.T. Behavioural and Neurophysiological Assessment of Hearing Aid Benefits in an Adult Population with and without Hearing Loss. Preprints2023, 2023010202. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202301.0202.v1
Appaiah-Konganda, S.; Sharma, M.; Ibrahim, R.; Monaghan, J.J.M.; Newall, J.; Valderrama Valenzuela, J.T. Behavioural and Neurophysiological Assessment of Hearing Aid Benefits in an Adult Population with and without Hearing Loss. Preprints 2023, 2023010202. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202301.0202.v1
Appaiah-Konganda, S.; Sharma, M.; Ibrahim, R.; Monaghan, J.J.M.; Newall, J.; Valderrama Valenzuela, J.T. Behavioural and Neurophysiological Assessment of Hearing Aid Benefits in an Adult Population with and without Hearing Loss. Preprints2023, 2023010202. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202301.0202.v1
APA Style
Appaiah-Konganda, S., Sharma, M., Ibrahim, R., Monaghan, J.J.M., Newall, J., & Valderrama Valenzuela, J.T. (2023). Behavioural and Neurophysiological Assessment of Hearing Aid Benefits in an Adult Population with and without Hearing Loss. Preprints. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202301.0202.v1
Chicago/Turabian Style
Appaiah-Konganda, S., John Newall and Joaquin Tomas Valderrama Valenzuela. 2023 "Behavioural and Neurophysiological Assessment of Hearing Aid Benefits in an Adult Population with and without Hearing Loss" Preprints. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202301.0202.v1
Abstract
Background: Despite hearing aids adequately compensate for hearing loss, a substantial proportion of the population leave their hearing difficulties untreated. Even though this is a well-known clinical issue, the optimal approach to address this issue during the hearing rehabilitation process is still unclear. Purpose: The present study aims to characterise behavioural and neurophysiological auditory and cognitive processing skills in experienced hearing aid users versus those with normal hearing, aimed at providing clinicians with the evidence required to adequately manage the expectations of their clients, thus indirectly reinforcing hearing-aid adoption within the adult population with hearing loss. Research design: Behavioural tests included auditory, cognitive, and speech-in-noise tasks; and neurophysiological testing included cortical auditory evoked potentials evoked by a /da/ stimulus presented at 65 dB SPL. The tests were selected based on previous literature supporting specific speech-understanding skills. Study sample: Ten participants (7 female, 21—68 years) with bilateral, mild-moderate to moderately-severe sensorineural hearing loss (HL), and 10 with clinically normal hearing (NH, 8 female, 19—62 years) participated in the study. Data collection and analysis: Behavioural data was analysed using multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) and neurophysiological analysis used measurements such as independent t-test, time-frequency analysis and inter-trial phase coherence. Results: The NH and HL groups presented similar scores in all the behavioural tasks. Time-frequency analysis revealed a statistically significantly reduction in alpha (8–12 Hz) synchronisation at the centro-frontal electrodes in the HL group – a brain activity pattern that has been associated with listening effort, inhibition and selective attention. Conclusions and significance: Results support the conclusion that hearing aids are effective in compensating for the audibility of their users, enabling them to perform at similar levels than their normal-hearing peers. However, the reduced alpha synchronisation observed in the HL population indicates that adequate audibility does not extend to improved neural responses. Future studies need to investigate the induced activity in speech understanding paradigms to explore the auditory processing differences at cortical level. The results are only from a small sample size but the findings have the potential to support clinicians in managing adequately the expectations of their clients in regards the benefits of hearing aid technologies.
Keywords
Alpha synchronisation; Working memory; Auditory processing; Modulation detection threshold
Subject
Medicine and Pharmacology, Clinical Medicine
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
