Reduced listening fatigue from hearing aid use in a Time-Compressed Auditory Day (TCAD)

Introduction Participation in complex listening situations such as group conversations in noisy environments place high demands on the auditory system and especially on cognitive processing. Listening situations with high complexity are known to be associated with increased auditory effort. The reports of hearing-impaired people indicate that strenuous listening situations occurring throughout the day lead to strong feelings of fatigue at the end of the day.Aim The aim of the present study is to evaluate the influence of hearing aid use on listening fatigue in mild to moderately hearing impaired hearing aid users.Methodology The chosen approach aims to reconstruct a representative auditory day (temporally compressed auditory day, TCAD) by means of an eight-part hearing test sequence with a total duration of approximately two and a half hours. For this purpose, the hearing test sequence was embedded in different acoustic scenarios and presented to the 20 test subjects using virtual acoustics in an open field measurement in aided and unaided measurement conditions.Results In three of eight listening tests, the aided condition showed significantly faster reaction times and word repetition rates than in the unaided condition. The results of the d2R performance test, which was performed immediately before and after TCAD, showed a significant improvement in cognitive processing speed after TCAD between both measurement conditions. The averaged assessments at the beginning and end of the TCAD imply a significant increase in fatigue at the end in both conditions. At the end of the TCAD, there is a significant difference between both conditions.

Conflict of Interest Der Erstautor weist auf folgenden Interessenkonflikt hin Sonova hat die Studie gesponsert.

Publication History

Article published online:
24 May 2022