Predicting Success With Hearing Aids
Hearing LossPresbycusisThe primary complaint of individuals with hearing loss is difficulty understanding speech in the presence of background noise. Although hearing aids help individuals understand speech in background noise better, there is a high rate of hearing aid rejection in part due to continued difficulty understanding speech in complex listening situations. The results of this study may demonstrate that speech-in-noise test results can be a predictor of hearing aid success. The results of this study also may lead to further studies that can evaluate interventions to improve hearing aid success for individuals who are identified as unsuccessful hearing aid users.
The Performance-Perceptual Test as a Counseling Tool
Hearing ImpairmentThe purpose of the study is to determine whether a new test of ability to understand speech in noise and an associated counseling program can improve hearing aid satisfaction. Participants complete routine hearing tests, some hearing-related questionnaires and the new speech test. One group of participants receives the new form of counseling, the second group does not. Hearing aid satisfaction following 10 weeks hearing aid use is compared across the groups.
CP1150 Sound Processor Speech Perception Compared With the Next Generation of Signal Processing...
Hearing ImpairmentSensorineuralThis clinical study aims to investigate speech performance in quiet with an OTE Sound Processor with modified firmware compared with the commercially available CP1150. The study also investigates CP1110 and CP1150 with Forward Focus.
Validity of the French Version of Deafness Questionnaires for Children and Adolescents
DeafnessThe care of deafness in children is difficult and the relevance of interventions is difficult to evaluate based on audiometric measurements alone. Generic pediatric quality of life tools have been validated and used, among other things, to assess the quality of life of children with deafness. However, these non-specific tools do not make it possible to precisely target which factors and interventions are the most important for the quality of life in this population. Achieving a score to monitor the quality of life objectively over time is fundamental to verify the effectiveness of interventions, and assess the impact on the child. There is currently no validated test in French for any of these uses and populations. The objective of the study is to adapt the questionnaires "PEACH", "SSQ child (SSQ-C)" and "SSQ parents (SSQ-P)" to the French child, and statistically measure their internal and external validity by comparing them to a control group. The validation of these three tests (PEACH, SSQ-P, SSQ-C) would make it possible to assess the hearing performance and quality of life of almost the entire pediatric population, for use in both clinical and academic practice.
Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study of the Central Auditory System After Single Sided Deafness...
Unilateral Hearing LossThe objective is to study the relation between the reorganization of the central auditory system, and the psychophysical deficits in binaural hearing in subjects with single sided deafness.
Cancer and Hearing Loss Related in Children
Cancer in ChildrenHearing LossA limited number of relatively contradictory studies have suggested that the development of serious ototoxicity in children treated with cisplatin or, more rarely, carboplatin could be partly related to genetic risk factors affecting detoxification enzymes and membrane transporters of platinum derivatives. The objective of this study is therefore to identify genetic variants associated with the development of platinum ototoxicity in patients treated with cisplatin or carboplatin (minimum follow-up of 3 years) for one of the following diseases: neuroblastoma, hepatoblastoma, retinoblastoma, malignant germ cell tumour, osteosarcoma, high-risk or recurrent Wilms' tumour, non-parameningealrhabdomyosarcoma. A total of 180 patients, corresponding to 60 cases with grade 3 or 4 ototoxicity and 120 controls with no signs of ototoxicity (separate complete audiograms for each ear) will be included. A saliva sample will be used to obtain DNA for pharmacogenetic studies. The value of this study will be to define a population at high risk of developing ototoxicity in order to adapt treatment, or even develop preventive treatment of ototoxicity based on antioxidant medications
Prevention of Noise-induced Damage by Use of Antioxidants
Noise-induced TinnitusNoise-induced Hearing LossThe current study is a dubble-blinde placebo-controlled cross-over study verifying the preventive effect of antioxidants on noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL) and noise-induced tinnitus (NIT). The antioxidants comprise of a mixture of magnesium and n-acetylcystein which should be taken 1h before leisure noise above 100dB for at least 30 minutes.
Spectral Dynamics and Speech Understanding by Hearing Impaired People
Hearing LossSensorineuralThe purpose of this program of research is to understand the perception of the dynamic spectral properties of speech by hearing-impaired listeners, with the long-term goal of improving speech understanding by these individuals in adverse listening conditions. The proposed research compares the performance of normally-hearing and hearing-impaired listeners on measures of speech understanding in the presence of different types of signal distortion and speech understanding of signals with enhanced spectral dynamics. A computational model based on the amount of potential information available in speech will be used to quantify differences in speech intelligibility due to hearing status and stimulus characteristics.
Applying the Use of Motivational Tools to Auditory Rehabilitation
Hearing LossThe purpose of this study is to compare two different ways of helping first-time hearing-aid users get the most out of their hearing aids and determine if one method is better than the other. One method provides the patient with routine information regarding the care and use of hearing aids the other method uses tools to address patient-specific barriers against and motivators for hearing-aid use.
Hearing Instruments in Alzheimer's Disease
Alzheimer DiseaseHearing LossThere is a strong connection between hearing loss and cognitive impairment, particularly dementia, in old age. Worldwide, dementia affects approximately 5% of persons over the age of 65 years. Hearing loss is even more prevalent in old age, affecting an estimated one third of persons over the age of 65 years. Thus, there is likely a large degree of overlap between the impairments. Indeed, this overlap may influence older adults' everyday functioning, communication, social engagement and quality of life, as well as influencing the well-being of their family caregivers. This project will examine whether patients with hearing loss and Alzheimer's disease, the most common form of dementia, derive benefit the from hearing aids prescribed and fit to them following current best practice procedures in a geriatric audiology clinic. For the first time, a formal evaluation of the potential benefits of hearing aids for the patients' family caregivers will also be conducted.