Article
Speech discrimination in noise and localisation in unilateral deaf patients using the Baha Intenso or Baha BP100
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Published: | July 6, 2010 |
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Introduction: Single-sided deafness (SSD) reduces the ability to localise sounds and to discriminate speech in background noise. The aim of this study is to investigate the localisation abilities and the speech discrimination in noise in unilateral deaf patients using the Baha Intenso or BP100 as CROS device.
Methods: So far 7 patients have been included into the study. Localisation was assessed using an array of 7 speakers at head level separated by 30° azimuth in a frontal semicircle. Speech discrimination in noise was measured using the Hochmair-Schulz-Moser sentence test for the 3 different speech in noise presentation conditions S0N0, S45N-45 and S-45N45.
Results: When speech is presented on the deaf ear and noise on the normal hearing ear speech discrimination with the Intenso and BP100 is superior to the unaided condition. Otherwise, when speech is presented on the normal ear and noise on the deaf ear, speech discrimination is poorer with the Intenso, but similar with the BP100 compared to the unaided condition. The patients show similar moderate localisation abilities in the unaided condition as well as with the Intenso and the BP100.
Conclusion: The use of the BP100 seems to improve speech discrimination in noise compared to the unaided situation. There is no improvement of localisation in unilateral deaf patients using the Intenso or BP100 compared to the unaided situation which is probably due to the fact that the use of a Baha device doesn't allow proper binaural hearing.