Glanzer, B.M.; Ladki, M.S.; Chea, M.; Hummel, L.; McKinnon, B.; Digbeu, B.D.E.; Merkley, K.H.; Amin, A.S.; Gupta, P.K. Bluetooth Noise-Canceling Headphones Improve the Quality of Ophthalmic Exam in Hearing-Loss Patients – A Randomized Controlled Trial. Preprints2023, 2023101157. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202310.1157.v1
APA Style
Glanzer, B.M., Ladki, M.S., Chea, M., Hummel, L., McKinnon, B., Digbeu, B.D.E., Merkley, K.H., Amin, A.S., & Gupta, P.K. (2023). Bluetooth Noise-Canceling Headphones Improve the Quality of Ophthalmic Exam in Hearing-Loss Patients – A Randomized Controlled Trial. Preprints. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202310.1157.v1
Chicago/Turabian Style
Glanzer, B.M., Atish S Amin and Praveena K Gupta. 2023 "Bluetooth Noise-Canceling Headphones Improve the Quality of Ophthalmic Exam in Hearing-Loss Patients – A Randomized Controlled Trial" Preprints. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202310.1157.v1
Abstract
This study tests the utilization of Bluetooth noise-canceling headphones in improving the quality of eye exams in patients with hearing loss. University of Texas Medical Branch patients above 55 years of age were screened for hearing loss using SoundCheck audiometry. All 29 subjects (18 red-zone and 11 yellow-zone) answered pre-recorded Amsler grid and patient education questions that solicited precise responses. As controls, subjects were randomly administered half of the questions via headphones and half via a smartphone at normal speech volume (60 decibels). Points were awarded for responses demonstrating comprehension, and a post-exam survey was collected. Collectively, the mean score was 1.79 with headphones versus 0.96 with control on the Amsler grid segment and 1.90 with headphones versus 0.97 with control on education questions (p=0.001). Between the red and yellow zone hearing loss patients, the red-zone group answered significantly better in both Amsler (1.78 versus 0.50; p=0.0003) and education questions (1.88 versus 0.44; p<0.0001) with headphones. The yellow zone group answered better with headphones overall but failed to reach significance. Post-exam survey indicated that 28 of 29 patients (97%) preferred the headphones during ophthalmic exams. Patients with severe hearing loss demonstrated better comprehension with the noise-canceling headphones; thus these devices show great promise in improving effective, compassionate communication between providers and hearing-loss patients.
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.
