Effects of Amplification and Hearing Aid Experience on the Contribution of Specific Frequency Bands to Loudness

Objectives: The primary aim of this study is to describe the effect of hearing aid amplification on the contribution of specific frequency bands to overall loudness in adult listeners with sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL). Results for listeners with SNHL were compared with results for listeners with normal hearing (NH) to evaluate whether amplification restores the normal perception of loudness for broadband sound. A secondary aim of this study is to determine whether the loudness perception of new hearing aid users becomes closer to normal over the first few months of hearing aid use. It was hypothesized that amplification would cause the high-frequency bands to contribute most to the perception of loudness and that this effect might decrease as new hearing aid users adapt to amplification. Design: In experiment 1, 8 adult listeners with SNHL completed a two-interval forced-choice loudness task in unaided and aided conditions. A control group of 7 listeners with NH completed the task in the unaided condition only. Stimuli were composed of seven summed noise bands whose levels were independently adjusted between presentations. During a trial, two stimuli were presented, and listeners determined the louder one. The correlation between the difference in levels for a given noise band on every trial and the listener’s response was calculated. The resulting measure is termed the perceptual weight because it provides an estimate of the relative contribution of a given frequency region to overall loudness. In experiment 2, a separate group of 6 new hearing aid users repeated identical procedures on 2 sessions separated by 12 weeks. Results: Results for listeners with SNHL were similar in experiments 1 and 2. In the unaided condition, perceptual weights were greatest for the low-frequency bands. In the aided condition, perceptual weights were greatest for the high-frequency bands. On average, the aided perceptual weights for listeners with SNHL for high-frequency bands were greater than the unaided weights for listeners with NH. In experiment 2, hearing aid experience did not have a significant effect on perceptual weights. Conclusions: The high frequencies seem to dominate loudness perception in listeners with SNHL using hearing aids as they do in listeners with NH. However, the results suggest that amplification causes high frequencies to have a larger contribution to overall loudness compared with listeners with NH. The contribution of the high frequencies to loudness did not change after an acclimatization period for the first-time hearing aid users. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: The authors credit Thomas Creutz for waveform computation and development of a data extraction program and thank the clinical audiologists at Boys Town National Research Hospital for their willingness to assist with subject recruitment and gathering of clinical data. Funding for the project was provided by the National Institute of Health NIDCD grant R01 DC011806. Participant recruitment was facilitated by P30 DC004662. These experiments were presented at two consecutive meetings of the American Auditory Society in Scottsdale, AZ; experiment 1 was presented in 2016, and experiment 2 was presented in 2017. This work was performed in collaboration with the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in fulfillment of the first author’s Doctor of Audiology (AuD) capstone research project. The authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose. Address for correspondence: Katie Thrailkill, Boys Town National Research Hospital, 555 N 30th St, Omaha, NE 68131, USA. E-mail: kthrailkill@huskers.unl.edu Received May 16, 2017; accepted March 27, 2018. Copyright © 2018 Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Heritability of Age-Related Hearing Loss in Middle-Aged and Elderly Chinese: A Population-Based Twin Study

Objectives: The heritability of age-related hearing loss has been studied mostly in developed countries. The authors aimed to estimate the heritability of better ear hearing level (BEHL), defined as hearing level of the better ear at a given frequency, and pure-tone averages at the middle (0.5, 1.0, and 2.0 kHz) and high (4.0, 8.0, and 12.5 kHz) frequencies among middle-aged and elderly Chinese twins, and to explore their genetic correlations. Design: This population-based twin study included 226 monozygotic and 132 dizygotic twin-pairs and 1 triplet (age range, 33 to 80 years; mean age, 51.55 years). Pure-tone air-conducted hearing thresholds in each ear were measured at the frequencies of 0.5, 1.0, 2.0, 4.0, 8.0, and 12.5 kHz with a diagnostic audiometer. Univariate and multivariate twin models were fitted to evaluate heritability and genetic correlations. Results: Our data showed a reverse J-shaped pattern of BEHLs at six frequencies by age and sex. Univariate analysis showed that the heritability of BEHLs at the frequencies between 2.0 and 12.5 kHz ranged from 47.08 to 54.20%, but the heritability at the frequencies of 0.5 and 1.0 kHz was 1.65% and 18.68%, respectively. The heritability of pure-tone average at the middle and high frequencies was 34.77% and 43.26%, respectively. Multivariate analysis showed significant genetic correlations among BEHLs at all six frequencies, with the correlation coefficients ranging from 0.48 to 0.83 at middle frequencies, and from 0.46 to 0.75 at high frequencies. Conclusions: This population-based twin study suggests that genetic factors are associated with age-related hearing loss at middle and high frequencies among middle-aged and elderly Chinese. Supplemental digital content is available for this article. Direct URL citations appear in the printed text and are provided in the HTML and text of this article on the journal’s Web site (www.ear-hearing.com). ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: This study was supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grants no. 81703292 and 31371024), the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2016M590622), the Qingdao Postdoctoral Application Research Project (2015150), the Qingdao Key Health Discipline Development Fund, the Qingdao Outstanding Health Professional Development Fund, and the Shandong Medical and Health Science and Technology Development Program (2015wso329). The authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose. Address for correspondence: Dongfeng Zhang, Department of Public Health, Qingdao University Medical College, Dengzhou Street 38, Qingdao 266021, Shandong, China. E-mail: zhangdf1961@126.com; or Chengxuan Qiu, Aging Research Center, Karolinska Institutet, Tomtebodavägen 18, 171 65 Solna, Sweden. E-mail: chengxuan.qiu@ki.se Received October 31, 2016; accepted March 30, 2018. Copyright © 2018 Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Effects of Amplification and Hearing Aid Experience on the Contribution of Specific Frequency Bands to Loudness

Objectives: The primary aim of this study is to describe the effect of hearing aid amplification on the contribution of specific frequency bands to overall loudness in adult listeners with sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL). Results for listeners with SNHL were compared with results for listeners with normal hearing (NH) to evaluate whether amplification restores the normal perception of loudness for broadband sound. A secondary aim of this study is to determine whether the loudness perception of new hearing aid users becomes closer to normal over the first few months of hearing aid use. It was hypothesized that amplification would cause the high-frequency bands to contribute most to the perception of loudness and that this effect might decrease as new hearing aid users adapt to amplification. Design: In experiment 1, 8 adult listeners with SNHL completed a two-interval forced-choice loudness task in unaided and aided conditions. A control group of 7 listeners with NH completed the task in the unaided condition only. Stimuli were composed of seven summed noise bands whose levels were independently adjusted between presentations. During a trial, two stimuli were presented, and listeners determined the louder one. The correlation between the difference in levels for a given noise band on every trial and the listener’s response was calculated. The resulting measure is termed the perceptual weight because it provides an estimate of the relative contribution of a given frequency region to overall loudness. In experiment 2, a separate group of 6 new hearing aid users repeated identical procedures on 2 sessions separated by 12 weeks. Results: Results for listeners with SNHL were similar in experiments 1 and 2. In the unaided condition, perceptual weights were greatest for the low-frequency bands. In the aided condition, perceptual weights were greatest for the high-frequency bands. On average, the aided perceptual weights for listeners with SNHL for high-frequency bands were greater than the unaided weights for listeners with NH. In experiment 2, hearing aid experience did not have a significant effect on perceptual weights. Conclusions: The high frequencies seem to dominate loudness perception in listeners with SNHL using hearing aids as they do in listeners with NH. However, the results suggest that amplification causes high frequencies to have a larger contribution to overall loudness compared with listeners with NH. The contribution of the high frequencies to loudness did not change after an acclimatization period for the first-time hearing aid users. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: The authors credit Thomas Creutz for waveform computation and development of a data extraction program and thank the clinical audiologists at Boys Town National Research Hospital for their willingness to assist with subject recruitment and gathering of clinical data. Funding for the project was provided by the National Institute of Health NIDCD grant R01 DC011806. Participant recruitment was facilitated by P30 DC004662. These experiments were presented at two consecutive meetings of the American Auditory Society in Scottsdale, AZ; experiment 1 was presented in 2016, and experiment 2 was presented in 2017. This work was performed in collaboration with the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in fulfillment of the first author’s Doctor of Audiology (AuD) capstone research project. The authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose. Address for correspondence: Katie Thrailkill, Boys Town National Research Hospital, 555 N 30th St, Omaha, NE 68131, USA. E-mail: kthrailkill@huskers.unl.edu Received May 16, 2017; accepted March 27, 2018. Copyright © 2018 Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Heritability of Age-Related Hearing Loss in Middle-Aged and Elderly Chinese: A Population-Based Twin Study

Objectives: The heritability of age-related hearing loss has been studied mostly in developed countries. The authors aimed to estimate the heritability of better ear hearing level (BEHL), defined as hearing level of the better ear at a given frequency, and pure-tone averages at the middle (0.5, 1.0, and 2.0 kHz) and high (4.0, 8.0, and 12.5 kHz) frequencies among middle-aged and elderly Chinese twins, and to explore their genetic correlations. Design: This population-based twin study included 226 monozygotic and 132 dizygotic twin-pairs and 1 triplet (age range, 33 to 80 years; mean age, 51.55 years). Pure-tone air-conducted hearing thresholds in each ear were measured at the frequencies of 0.5, 1.0, 2.0, 4.0, 8.0, and 12.5 kHz with a diagnostic audiometer. Univariate and multivariate twin models were fitted to evaluate heritability and genetic correlations. Results: Our data showed a reverse J-shaped pattern of BEHLs at six frequencies by age and sex. Univariate analysis showed that the heritability of BEHLs at the frequencies between 2.0 and 12.5 kHz ranged from 47.08 to 54.20%, but the heritability at the frequencies of 0.5 and 1.0 kHz was 1.65% and 18.68%, respectively. The heritability of pure-tone average at the middle and high frequencies was 34.77% and 43.26%, respectively. Multivariate analysis showed significant genetic correlations among BEHLs at all six frequencies, with the correlation coefficients ranging from 0.48 to 0.83 at middle frequencies, and from 0.46 to 0.75 at high frequencies. Conclusions: This population-based twin study suggests that genetic factors are associated with age-related hearing loss at middle and high frequencies among middle-aged and elderly Chinese. Supplemental digital content is available for this article. Direct URL citations appear in the printed text and are provided in the HTML and text of this article on the journal’s Web site (www.ear-hearing.com). ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: This study was supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grants no. 81703292 and 31371024), the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2016M590622), the Qingdao Postdoctoral Application Research Project (2015150), the Qingdao Key Health Discipline Development Fund, the Qingdao Outstanding Health Professional Development Fund, and the Shandong Medical and Health Science and Technology Development Program (2015wso329). The authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose. Address for correspondence: Dongfeng Zhang, Department of Public Health, Qingdao University Medical College, Dengzhou Street 38, Qingdao 266021, Shandong, China. E-mail: zhangdf1961@126.com; or Chengxuan Qiu, Aging Research Center, Karolinska Institutet, Tomtebodavägen 18, 171 65 Solna, Sweden. E-mail: chengxuan.qiu@ki.se Received October 31, 2016; accepted March 30, 2018. Copyright © 2018 Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Effects of Amplification and Hearing Aid Experience on the Contribution of Specific Frequency Bands to Loudness

Objectives: The primary aim of this study is to describe the effect of hearing aid amplification on the contribution of specific frequency bands to overall loudness in adult listeners with sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL). Results for listeners with SNHL were compared with results for listeners with normal hearing (NH) to evaluate whether amplification restores the normal perception of loudness for broadband sound. A secondary aim of this study is to determine whether the loudness perception of new hearing aid users becomes closer to normal over the first few months of hearing aid use. It was hypothesized that amplification would cause the high-frequency bands to contribute most to the perception of loudness and that this effect might decrease as new hearing aid users adapt to amplification. Design: In experiment 1, 8 adult listeners with SNHL completed a two-interval forced-choice loudness task in unaided and aided conditions. A control group of 7 listeners with NH completed the task in the unaided condition only. Stimuli were composed of seven summed noise bands whose levels were independently adjusted between presentations. During a trial, two stimuli were presented, and listeners determined the louder one. The correlation between the difference in levels for a given noise band on every trial and the listener’s response was calculated. The resulting measure is termed the perceptual weight because it provides an estimate of the relative contribution of a given frequency region to overall loudness. In experiment 2, a separate group of 6 new hearing aid users repeated identical procedures on 2 sessions separated by 12 weeks. Results: Results for listeners with SNHL were similar in experiments 1 and 2. In the unaided condition, perceptual weights were greatest for the low-frequency bands. In the aided condition, perceptual weights were greatest for the high-frequency bands. On average, the aided perceptual weights for listeners with SNHL for high-frequency bands were greater than the unaided weights for listeners with NH. In experiment 2, hearing aid experience did not have a significant effect on perceptual weights. Conclusions: The high frequencies seem to dominate loudness perception in listeners with SNHL using hearing aids as they do in listeners with NH. However, the results suggest that amplification causes high frequencies to have a larger contribution to overall loudness compared with listeners with NH. The contribution of the high frequencies to loudness did not change after an acclimatization period for the first-time hearing aid users. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: The authors credit Thomas Creutz for waveform computation and development of a data extraction program and thank the clinical audiologists at Boys Town National Research Hospital for their willingness to assist with subject recruitment and gathering of clinical data. Funding for the project was provided by the National Institute of Health NIDCD grant R01 DC011806. Participant recruitment was facilitated by P30 DC004662. These experiments were presented at two consecutive meetings of the American Auditory Society in Scottsdale, AZ; experiment 1 was presented in 2016, and experiment 2 was presented in 2017. This work was performed in collaboration with the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in fulfillment of the first author’s Doctor of Audiology (AuD) capstone research project. The authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose. Address for correspondence: Katie Thrailkill, Boys Town National Research Hospital, 555 N 30th St, Omaha, NE 68131, USA. E-mail: kthrailkill@huskers.unl.edu Received May 16, 2017; accepted March 27, 2018. Copyright © 2018 Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Heritability of Age-Related Hearing Loss in Middle-Aged and Elderly Chinese: A Population-Based Twin Study

Objectives: The heritability of age-related hearing loss has been studied mostly in developed countries. The authors aimed to estimate the heritability of better ear hearing level (BEHL), defined as hearing level of the better ear at a given frequency, and pure-tone averages at the middle (0.5, 1.0, and 2.0 kHz) and high (4.0, 8.0, and 12.5 kHz) frequencies among middle-aged and elderly Chinese twins, and to explore their genetic correlations. Design: This population-based twin study included 226 monozygotic and 132 dizygotic twin-pairs and 1 triplet (age range, 33 to 80 years; mean age, 51.55 years). Pure-tone air-conducted hearing thresholds in each ear were measured at the frequencies of 0.5, 1.0, 2.0, 4.0, 8.0, and 12.5 kHz with a diagnostic audiometer. Univariate and multivariate twin models were fitted to evaluate heritability and genetic correlations. Results: Our data showed a reverse J-shaped pattern of BEHLs at six frequencies by age and sex. Univariate analysis showed that the heritability of BEHLs at the frequencies between 2.0 and 12.5 kHz ranged from 47.08 to 54.20%, but the heritability at the frequencies of 0.5 and 1.0 kHz was 1.65% and 18.68%, respectively. The heritability of pure-tone average at the middle and high frequencies was 34.77% and 43.26%, respectively. Multivariate analysis showed significant genetic correlations among BEHLs at all six frequencies, with the correlation coefficients ranging from 0.48 to 0.83 at middle frequencies, and from 0.46 to 0.75 at high frequencies. Conclusions: This population-based twin study suggests that genetic factors are associated with age-related hearing loss at middle and high frequencies among middle-aged and elderly Chinese. Supplemental digital content is available for this article. Direct URL citations appear in the printed text and are provided in the HTML and text of this article on the journal’s Web site (www.ear-hearing.com). ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: This study was supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grants no. 81703292 and 31371024), the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2016M590622), the Qingdao Postdoctoral Application Research Project (2015150), the Qingdao Key Health Discipline Development Fund, the Qingdao Outstanding Health Professional Development Fund, and the Shandong Medical and Health Science and Technology Development Program (2015wso329). The authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose. Address for correspondence: Dongfeng Zhang, Department of Public Health, Qingdao University Medical College, Dengzhou Street 38, Qingdao 266021, Shandong, China. E-mail: zhangdf1961@126.com; or Chengxuan Qiu, Aging Research Center, Karolinska Institutet, Tomtebodavägen 18, 171 65 Solna, Sweden. E-mail: chengxuan.qiu@ki.se Received October 31, 2016; accepted March 30, 2018. Copyright © 2018 Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Using aided cortical assessment as an objective tool to evaluate cochlear implant fitting in users with single-sided deafness.

Related Articles

Using aided cortical assessment as an objective tool to evaluate cochlear implant fitting in users with single-sided deafness.

PLoS One. 2018;13(2):e0193081

Authors: Távora-Vieira D, Wedekind A, Marino R, Purdy SC, Rajan GP

Abstract
OBJECTIVES: To assess the use of cortical auditory evoked potentials (CAEPs) to verify, and if necessary, optimize the cochlear implant (CI) fitting of adult CI users with postlingual single-sided deafness (SSD).
METHODS: Sound field cortical responses to the speech tokens /m/, /g/, /t/, and /s/ were recorded from input to the CI while the normal hearing ear was masked. Responses were evaluated by visual inspection and classified as presence or absence of the CAEPs components P1, N1, P2. In case of an absence fitting was adjusted accordingly. After fitting, subjects were asked to use their new setting for 2-3 weeks for acclimatization purposes and then return for retesting. At retesting, new CAEP recordings were performed to objectively ensure that the new fitting maps effectively activated the auditory cortex.
RESULTS: In 14/19 subjects, as per visual inspection, clear CAEPs were recorded by each speech token and were, therefore, not refit. In the other 5 subjects, CAEPs could not be evoked for at least one speech token. The fitting maps in these subjects were adjusted until clear CAEPs were evoked for all 4 speech tokens.
CONCLUSIONS: CAEP can be used to quickly and objectively verify the suitability of CI fitting in experienced adult CI users with SSD. If used in the early post-implantation stage, this method could help CI users derive greater benefit for CI use and, therefore, be more committed to auditory training.

PMID: 29470548 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

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Using aided cortical assessment as an objective tool to evaluate cochlear implant fitting in users with single-sided deafness.

Related Articles

Using aided cortical assessment as an objective tool to evaluate cochlear implant fitting in users with single-sided deafness.

PLoS One. 2018;13(2):e0193081

Authors: Távora-Vieira D, Wedekind A, Marino R, Purdy SC, Rajan GP

Abstract
OBJECTIVES: To assess the use of cortical auditory evoked potentials (CAEPs) to verify, and if necessary, optimize the cochlear implant (CI) fitting of adult CI users with postlingual single-sided deafness (SSD).
METHODS: Sound field cortical responses to the speech tokens /m/, /g/, /t/, and /s/ were recorded from input to the CI while the normal hearing ear was masked. Responses were evaluated by visual inspection and classified as presence or absence of the CAEPs components P1, N1, P2. In case of an absence fitting was adjusted accordingly. After fitting, subjects were asked to use their new setting for 2-3 weeks for acclimatization purposes and then return for retesting. At retesting, new CAEP recordings were performed to objectively ensure that the new fitting maps effectively activated the auditory cortex.
RESULTS: In 14/19 subjects, as per visual inspection, clear CAEPs were recorded by each speech token and were, therefore, not refit. In the other 5 subjects, CAEPs could not be evoked for at least one speech token. The fitting maps in these subjects were adjusted until clear CAEPs were evoked for all 4 speech tokens.
CONCLUSIONS: CAEP can be used to quickly and objectively verify the suitability of CI fitting in experienced adult CI users with SSD. If used in the early post-implantation stage, this method could help CI users derive greater benefit for CI use and, therefore, be more committed to auditory training.

PMID: 29470548 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

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Determinants of Hearing Aid Use Among Older Americans With Hearing Loss.

Determinants of Hearing Aid Use Among Older Americans With Hearing Loss.

Gerontologist. 2018 May 21;:

Authors: McKee MM, Choi H, Wilson S, DeJonckheere MJ, Zazove P, Levy H

Abstract
Background and Objectives: Hearing loss (HL) is common among older adults and is associated with significant psychosocial, cognitive, and physical sequelae. Hearing aids (HA) can help, but not all individuals with HL use them. This study examines how social determinants may impact HA use.
Research Design and Methods: We conducted an explanatory sequential mixed methods study involving a secondary analysis of a nationally representative data set, the Health and Retirement Study (HRS; n = 35,572). This was followed up with 1:1 qualitative interviews (n = 21) with community participants to clarify our findings. Both samples included individuals aged 55 and older with a self-reported HL, with or without HA. The main outcome measure was the proportion of participants with a self-reported HL who use HA.
Results and Discussion: Analysis of HRS data indicated that younger, nonwhite, non-Hispanic, lower income, and less-educated individuals were significantly less likely to use HA than their referent groups (all p values < .001). Area of residence (e.g., urban) were not significantly associated with HA use. Qualitative findings revealed barriers to HA included cost, stigma, vanity, and a general low priority placed on addressing HL by health care providers. Facilitators to obtaining and using HA included family/friend support, knowledge, and adequate insurance coverage for HA.
Implications: Many socioeconomic factors hinder individuals' ability to obtain and use HA, but these obstacles appeared to be mitigated in part when insurance plans provided adequate HA coverage, or when their family/friends provided encouragement to use HA.

PMID: 29788270 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]

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