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This study will evaluate sound quality and user satisfaction with Bluetooth streaming using a new bimodal streaming option for individuals who use a MED-EL cochlear implant and Starkey hearing aid.
Hearing loss is a major public health concern due to its negative association with emotional well-being, cognition, and physical ailments, such as diabetes. Access to audiologists and otolaryngologists in many regions across the US is poor or extremely limited. Rural populations are older, less educated, and have lower household incomes compared to populations in metropolitan areas. Also, with increasing age adults experience greater rates of hearing loss. Fortunately, the 2022 FDA Final Rule for Over-the-Counter Hearing Aids (OTC HAs) could revolutionize assess to hearing aids and hearing healthcare by allowing adults with perceived mild-to-moderate hearing loss to purchase these devices over the counter, without medical clearance or care from an audiologist. Pharmacies located in rural areas now have the option to provide OTC HAs, something previously not possible. Currently, however, there are no established guidelines for effective provision of these devices in pharmacies located in rural communities. Educating pharmacy technicians to provide basic hearing healthcare related to OTC HAs use could address a critical need and create a new care delivery model to ensure sustainable, long-term access to hearing healthcare. The long-term goal of this study is to create a sustainable interprofessional collaborative between audiologists and pharmacists for the development of a hearing healthcare model that improves access and affordability of care in rural regions across the country. The specific aims are to 1) Determine an effective approach for educating pharmacy technicians for the provision of OTC HAs in rural community pharmacies, and 2) Identify satisfaction of care provided by pharmacy technicians and initial performance with OTC HAs in adults with hearing loss living in rural communities. A stepped wedged clinical trial design will be used to study the effectiveness of a comprehensive educational training program for pharmacy technicians. Technicians from rural Alabama and Mississippi, placed within four different clusters, will participate in a multimodal training program for the purpose of developing basic clinical skills to assist adults with perceived mild-to-moderate hearing loss. Additionally, adults with hearing loss who receive clinical services from trained pharmacy technicians will be asked to report on the care they received and benefit from their OTC HAs. The central hypotheses are a) that pharmacy technician training will result in greater understanding of hearing healthcare concepts compared to no training, and b) the training will lead to successful provision of basic hearing healthcare to adults with hearing loss in rural communities. The expected outcome of this project will be the establishment of a multimodal education program, leveraging the increased access of OTC HAs, to support those with hearing loss in rural pharmacies across the county. The ability of pharmacy technicians to provide this support will dramatically increase the availability of hearing services in rural communities, which will positively impact the quality of life for those with hearing loss.
The purpose of this study is to determine if artificial intelligence- based noise reduction can offer objective improvement in hearing and speech perception for hearing impaired patients.
This goal of this study is to learn if a new audiology treatment process called the self-efficacy-based auditory rehabilitation (SEBAR) can improve confidence and success with over-the-counter (OTC) hearing aids. The main questions it aims to answer are: * Can the SEBAR improve participants' confidence related to managing their over-the-counter hearing aids? * Can the SEBAR improve participants' willingness to adopt over-the-counter hearing aids, their satisfaction, quality of life, and their emotional state? Researchers will compare these outcomes of the SEBAR with and without wearing OTC hearing aids. Participants will: * Visit for one appointment to complete a few questionnaires without OTC hearing aids * Wear a pair of ITC hearing aids for a week and use an app to answer questions about their experiences * Visit for a second appointment to complete the same questionnaires with OTC hearing aids.
Hearing aids can improve hearing, communication, and overall quality of life for people with hearing loss. However, not many people use hearing aids. A common reason is that hearing aids are expensive and hard to get. The traditional way to get hearing aids involves multiple visits to licensed audiologists for identifying hearing loss, customizing the aids, and ongoing maintenance. This traditional method is called the AUD pathway. Over-the-counter (OTC) hearing aids offer a different approach. They aim to make hearing aids more affordable and accessible, encouraging earlier use. In the OTC pathway, users diagnose their own hearing loss and fit and program the hearing aids themselves. Little is known about long-term effects of OTC hearing aids on users. This study aims to compare the experiences of people who choose the OTC pathway with those who choose the AUD pathway. It takes place in two locations: Iowa City, IA, and Nashville, TN. Participants, who have mild-to-moderate hearing loss, choose their preferred pathway and are followed for 12 months. In the OTC pathway, participants buy their hearing aids directly from OTC companies or retailers. In the AUD pathway, prescription hearing aids and fitting services are provided by audiology clinics at the University of Iowa and Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Participants are contacted 1, 6, and 12 months after starting to use their hearing aids. Researchers measure their satisfaction about hearing aids and other outcomes. If participants stop using their hearing aids, researchers assess their engagement with post-amplification hearing care. The results from both pathways are then compared.
Since 2000, at least 250,000 U.S. Service members have experienced a blast-related mild traumatic brain injury. A retrospective analysis of over 100,000 post-9/11 Veterans shows that blast injury more than doubles the risk of a diagnosed auditory problem. Many blast-exposed Veterans experience "functional hearing difficulties" (FHDs): problems in challenging listening environments despite clinically normal hearing as measured by the pure-tone audiogram. VA audiologists have begun using low-gain hearing aids to treat FHDs, but there are no concrete guidelines for this application given standard procedures rely on the pure-tone audiogram. This study proposes a data-driven approach called speech-based audiometry (SBA), which optimizes hearing aid gains from a patient's responses to speech stimuli in aided conditions. This trial will assess the behavioral (speech recognition in noise, subjective listening difficulty) and neurophysiological (functional neuroimaging during a speech recognition task) benefits of low-gain hearing aids programmed conventionally or with SBA among blast-exposed Veterans with FHDs.
Every year, approximately 100,000 Veterans seek help at VA Audiology clinics for hearing and communication difficulties only to learn that they have normal hearing sensitivity. Unfortunately, there are very few established options to improve hearing and listening for these patients. To address this need, audiologists are increasingly prescribing hearing aids set to provide a small amount of amplification. Patients may benefit from the amplification or from modern hearing aid features such as noise reduction technology and the ability to stream sounds from a desired sound source directly to their ears thus reducing the background noise. This project will help to determine if prescribing hearing aids to patients without hearing loss is, in fact, beneficial and if so, why. It will also help to determine if some patients benefit more from hearing aids than others so that in the future, rehabilitation strategies can be better targeted toward individuals.
The goal of this study is to better understand if, in patients with mild to moderate hearing loss who are also experiencing mild cognitive impairment (MCI) or Alzheimer's disease and related dementias (ADRD), Over-the-Counter (OTC) hearing aids: 1. improve communication 2. Whether the magnitude of benefit depends on the patient's level of cognitive disability, 3. Whether alternative remediation (such as targeted communication strategies) offer similar benefits. Participants and a communication partner will be randomized into an OTC first or Communication Strategies first arm, where participants will receive communication strategy information customized for those with cognitive impairment.
Normal-hearing participants aged 18-25 with and without musical training will listen to a series of short musical samples that have been recorded through hearing aids. The music will be played at a comfortable listening level. Subjects will use the computer to rate the sound quality of the music on a 7-point Likert scale.
This current translational project, funded by NIH, aims to better understand the impact of various signal modification strategies for older adults with Alzheimer's dementia and its potential precursor, known as amnestic mild cognitive impairment. The investigators hypothesize that adults with Alzheimer's dementia represent an extreme case of restricted cognitive ability, such that very low working memory capacity and overall reduced cognitive capacity will limit benefit from advanced signal processing. Thus, the investigators hypothesize that adults with Alzheimer's dementia will receive greater benefit from acoustically simple, high-fidelity hearing aid processing that minimally alters the acoustic signal.