Telephone vs. Voice Over IP Speech Comprehension in Hearing Aided Subjects.

Summary

Despite modern hearing aids such as cochlear implants, speech comprehension during telephone conversation is challenging for hearing-impaired patients. On the one hand, conventional telephones transmit a limited spectrum of the acoustic signal compared to a normal conversation. On the other hand, lip reading during a phone call is generally not possible. As a result, speech comprehension during a telephone conversation is reduced. In previous studies, the authors demonstrated an improved speech comprehension for hearing-impaired patients using voice-over internet protocol (VoIP) telephony (Skype) compared to conventional telephony.

New bluetooth-enabled hearing aids allow for direct transmission of the telephone signal to the hearing device. As the direct transmission is expected to improve signal-to-noise ratio, speech comprehension is tested in patients with bluetooth-enabled hearing aids for 4 different scenarios: 1. conventional telephony without bluetooth device 2. conventional telephony with bluetooth device 3. VoIP telephony without bluetooth device 4. VoIP telephony with bluetooth device

Conditions

• Hearing-Impairment

Interventions

DEVICE

Conventional acoustic telephony

Quantification of speech comprehension by means of the Hochmair-Schulz-Moser sentence test.

DEVICE

Conventional bluetooth telephony

Quantification of speech comprehension by means of the Hochmair-Schulz-Moser sentence test.

DEVICE

VoIP acoustic telephony

Quantification of speech comprehension by means of the Hochmair-Schulz-Moser sentence test.

DEVICE

VoIP bluetooth telephony

Quantification of speech comprehension by means of the Hochmair-Schulz-Moser sentence test.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Cochlear

  collaborator INDUSTRY

• Stiftung Besser Hören

  collaborator UNKNOWN

• Insel Gruppe AG, University Hospital Bern

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Georgios Mantokoudis, MD · Attending physician

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

SUPPORTIVE_CARE

Masking

NONE

Model

CROSSOVER

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2017-04-01

Primary Completion

2018-05-11

Completion

2018-05-11

Countries

• Switzerland

Study Locations