EXAMINATION OF THE DURATION OF HEARING AID USE AFTER APPROPRIATE AMPLIFICATION IN INDIVIDUALS WHO DO NOT USE HEARING AIDS REGULARLY
1İstanbul Medipol Üniversitesi, Sağlık Bilimleri Fakültesi, Odyoloji, İstanbul, Türkiye2İstanbul Medipol Üniversitesi, Sağlık Bilimleri Enstitüsü, Odyoloji, İstanbul, Türkiye Objective: Hearing loss is an essential sensory loss that can affect people's lives socially, psychologically and economically. Therefore, hearing-impaired individuals should be protected from the devastating effects of hearing loss by using hearing aids with a "correct" procedure. On the other hand, auditory amplification that is not performed inappropriately with the patient's audiological, medical and psychosocial needs causes inefficient use of hearing aids. The purpose of our study is to determine whether hearing aid usage time and satisfaction of hearing aid users who use them less than two hours a day changed after "correct" auditory amplification procedure.
Material and Methods: The study included 16 male (mean age 63.62±15.92) and 14 female (mean age 64.5±10.61) participants between the ages of 18-90. Participants were selected from hearing-impaired individuals who purchased hearing aids but used them less than 2 hours a day/did not use them at all. Air-bone conduction hearing and Loudness Discomfort Level (LDL) thresholds of the participants were determined, ear molds that were not compatible with the audiological condition were renewed with appropriate acoustic modification, and hearing aid fitting was performed using Real Ear Measurement (REM). The participants' satisfaction was evaluated with the IOI-HA-TR survey before and after the re-adaptation, and the participants' hearing aid usage habits and effectiveness were examined.
Results: It was observed that the usage time of the hearing aid of the participants increased after adaptation (p <0.001). In addition, their satisfaction with hearing aids is increased after the re-adaptation (p<0.05).
Conclusion: Determining the air-bone and LDL thresholds of individuals with hearing loss, entering all audiologic data into the hearing aid fitting software completely, verifying the auditory gain using the REM, and performing the fine-tuning according to the user's expectations were increased to hearing aid usage time and patient's satisfaction.
Keywords : Hearing aids, Real Ear Measurement, IOI-HA