Objectives/hypothesis: Unilateral cochlear implantation has emerged as a widely accepted procedure to treat severe to profound hearing loss, but many studies have reported benefits in terms of speech comprehension when listeners with residual low-frequency hearing in the nonimplanted ear use a hearing aid.
Study design: Retrospective study.
Methods: In this study, we analyzed the speech performance and satisfaction of bimodal hearing according to the residual low-frequency hearing level in the nonimplanted ear. Based on low-frequency pure-tone audiometry (average of 250 Hz and 500 Hz) in the nonimplanted ear, we classified individuals into three groups as follows: group A (under 70 dB), group B (71-90 dB), and group C (over 91 dB). Listeners were tested using the Word Recognition Score, the Korea-Central Institute for Deaf sentence recognition test, and the Korean version of the Hearing Handicap Inventory for the Elderly questionnaire.
Results: We observed a bimodal benefit when the residual low-frequency threshold was less than 70 dB HL and a greater satisfaction with bimodal hearing compared to cochlear implant alone, when the residual low-frequency threshold was less than 70 dB HL.
Conclusions: This study supports the benefits of bimodal hearing in listeners with bilateral severe to profound sensorineural hearing loss as standard clinical practice, when the residual low-frequency hearing threshold is under 70 dB in the nonimplanted ear.
Level of evidence: 4 Laryngoscope, 126:2817-2822, 2016.
Keywords: Cochlear implants; hearing aid; personal satisfaction; speech.
© 2016 The American Laryngological, Rhinological and Otological Society, Inc.