Setting hearing aids for older adults: compression speed
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Setting hearing aids for older adults: the effect of compression speed on self-reported benefit and preference
IRAS ID
313159
Contact name
Richard Windle
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 0 months, 1 days
Research summary
There are over 600,000 adult referrals to audiology in England each year and about 2 million UK hearing aid users. The majority of these (86%) are older adults (over 55 years) so it might appear surprising that we could be setting hearing aids better for this population.
We “hear” in our brain, not in our ears. Our ears may be exquisitely refined but are, ultimately, microphones attached to a supercomputer, the auditory system, which is extremely fast and complex. It has to quickly disassemble, classify and make sense of the mix of sounds arriving at our ears. During normal ageing some of our cognitive processes become slower and less coordinated, making the auditory system less able to cope with complex listening challenges.
Hearing aids adjust their level of amplification depending on the volume of incoming sound, a process known as “compression”. The speed at which hearing aids alter amplification can happen quickly or slowly. The faster the speed, the more that specific syllables are exaggerated, but at the cost of introducing greater distortion to the sound that may particularly impede hearing for individuals with slower auditory processing. Some studies suggest slow compression is better for these individuals but overall evidence is inconsistent, offering little clear guidance to clinicians. Most studies only focus on benefits to speech recognition, ignoring other factors such as listening comfort and preference that may be more important in providing individual benefits.
This study will assess older adults’ benefit from and preference for slow or fast-acting compression by trialling each type of hearing aid in turn. We will further assess whether this relationship is affected by changing cognitive processes, previous experience with hearing aids and the degree of hearing loss. We aim to use the results to provide pragmatic advice to clinicians that can be quickly adopted.
REC name
London - Bromley Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
22/LO/0455
Date of REC Opinion
4 Jul 2022
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion