Relationships between speech comprehension and quality of life in adults with early childhood cochlea implantation

Introduction Childhood provision with a cochlea implant should enable successful communication skills using spoken language as well as age-appropriate receptive and expressive language performance. A positive influence on quality of life (QoL) is supposed, although there are only a few published studies.

Aim: To evaluate the relationship between hearing ability and QoL, depression and resilience in adults who underwent cochlea implantation as a child.

Methods In a cross-sectional study, 22 unilaterally or bilaterally implanted adults (implantation age 2.95  ± 1.99 years), who have been younger than 10 years at first implantation, were examined. Hearing was determined by means of tone audiogram, Freiburg speech test (ESV65 dB SPL and mEV) and Oldenburg sentence test (OLSA) in noise. In addition, disease-specific QoL (NCIQ), general QoL (WHOQoL-Bref), depressiveness (DESC-I) and resilience (RS-13) were examined by questionnaire.

Results With a wearing duration of 21.9±3.1 years, the aided thresholds (PTA-4) were in average 26.4 dB. The mEV was 74.3%, 17 patients had an EV65 of more than 50%. Aided thresholds, mEV and SNR correlated moderately with the subscales of the NCIQ; no correlation was found with resilience or depressiveness. There were moderate correlations between QoL (NCIQ and WHOQoL-Bref) and depressiveness, and strong correlations with resilience. The group with ESV 65dB  > 50% achieved consistently better scores in the psychological variables.

Conclusion So far, the results show that better speech understanding is associated with higher QoL. Therefore, the best possible adaptation of the CI should be permanently strived for, even many years after early childhood implantation.

Conflict of Interest Der Erstautor weist auf folgenden Interessenkonflikt hin Es handelt sich um ein Prüfer-initiiertes Projekt, das finanziell durch die Firmen Cochlear Deutschland GmbH & Co. KG, Advanced Bionics GmbH, MED-EL Medical Electronics unterstützt wird. Die Firmen tragen keine Verantwortung für das Design des Projektes, für die Inhalte des Projektplans oder die Durchführung des Projektes. Den Vereinbarungen und Vorschriften des Gemeinschaftsrahmens für Forschungs- und Entwicklungsbeihilfen werden in vollem Umfang Rechnung getragen.

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Artikel online veröffentlicht:
24. Mai 2022