Therefore, although HAs have been shown to improve cognitive and cortical function ( Karawani et al., 2018b Glick and Sharma, 2020 Karawani et al., 2022), and perceptual abilities ( Munro and Lutman, 2003 Lavie et al., 2015 Megha and Maruthy, 2019 Wright and Gagné, 2020), the benefits of speech in noise processing are limited ( Sweetow and Sabes, 2006 Humes et al., 2009, 2013 Kaplan-Neeman et al., 2012 Karawani et al., 2018a Bieber and Gordon-Salant, 2021).Ī recent systematic review suggested that “individuals with hearing impairment seem to benefit the most using a combination of sensory rehabilitation with HAs and auditory training to enhance auditory rehabilitation” ( Stropahl et al., 2020, page 1). The most difficult environments and the lowest scores were noted when speech was presented in a background noise condition compared to quiet or music conditions.
However, benefits varied depending on whether the listening background was quiet, noisy or music. (2017) measured subjective benefits of the use of HAs at 6 months, 1 year, 1.5 years, and 2 years using the Hearing Aid Benefit Questionnaire, and showed high satisfaction scores in aided situations. (2018a) showed that satisfaction with HAs increased over the course of 6 months. Previous studies showed that subjective benefits of HAs are low, especially in noisy environments ( Kochkin, 2000 Hartley et al., 2010). Subjective benefits of HAs are inconsistent, especially when assessed for noisy listening conditions. In addition, the current study examined perceptual differences between adults with non-rehabilitated hearing loss and those who used hearing aids to compensate for their loss. Since the adaptation period to HAs is very important, the current study evaluated a program that offers home-based auditory exercises in noise to assist with the adaptation process of HAs and examined the benefits of the use of such exercises in the subjective hearing ability reported by the listeners. The most common reason people do not use their HAs is that they did not provide an additional benefit, particularly in noisy environments ( McCormack and Fortnum, 2013). Despite the advanced technology of HAs, many individuals demonstrate “hearing aids in the drawer” phenomena ( Bisgaard and Ruf, 2017), where they often remove one HA or become dissatisfied with the assistance they receive from it ( Hoppe and Hesse, 2017 Johnson et al., 2018). Individuals with sensorineural hearing loss generally use hearing aids (HAs) to compensate for hearing loss. The findings indicate that HA users, even new users, had better perceptual performance than their peers who did not receive hearing aids. New users performed significantly better than non-users in all speech in noise tasks however, compared to the experienced users, performance differences depended on task difficulty. In sessions where stimuli were presented in quiet, similar performance was observed among new and experienced uses. Speech perception accuracy was poorer in the non-users group compared to the users in all tasks. Overall, speech perception in noise was poorer than in quiet. Self-assessed improvements in hearing ability were observed across the HA users groups, with significant changes described by new users. All participants completed self-assessment questionnaires before and after the auditory exercises program and underwent a cognitive test at the end. The auditory tasks included auditory detection, auditory discrimination, and auditory identification, as well as comprehension with basic (syllables) and more complex (sentences) stimuli, presented in quiet and in noisy listening conditions. These three groups underwent auditory exercises for 3 weeks. Group 2: New users (participants who were fitted with bilateral HAs for the first time). Group 1: Experienced users (participants who used bilateral HAs for at least 2 years). They were divided into three groups depending on their experience using HAs. The study included 53 older adults with age-related symmetrical sensorineural hearing loss. The home-based program was developed at a time when telemedicine became prominent in part due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The current study presents an evaluation of a home-based auditory exercises program that can be used during the adaptation process for HA use.
However, certain challenges in speech perception, especially in noise still exist, despite today’s HA technology. Older adults with age-related hearing loss often use hearing aids (HAs) to compensate.