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Quality of life improvement for bone-anchored hearing aid users and their partners

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 March 2011

M L McNeil ,
M Gulliver ,
D P Morris  and
M Bance
M L McNeil
Affiliation:
Division of Otolaryngology, Department of Surgery, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
M Gulliver
Affiliation:
Nova Scotia Hearing and Speech Centres, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
D P Morris
Affiliation:
Division of Otolaryngology, Department of Surgery, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
M Bance*
Affiliation:
Division of Otolaryngology, Department of Surgery, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
*
Address for correspondence: Dr Manohar Bance, Room 3184, 3rd Floor Dickson Building, VG site, QEII Health Sciences Centre, 1278 Tower Road, Halifax, NS B3H 2Y9, Canada Fax: +1 902 473 4345 E-mail: m.bance@dal.ca
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Abstract

Objectives:

Bone-anchored hearing aid recipients experience well documented improvements in their audiometric performance and quality of life. While hearing aid recipients may understate their functional improvement, their partners may be more aware of such improvement. We sought to investigate patients' partners' perceptions of functional improvement following bone-anchored hearing aid fitting.

Methods:

Surveys were sent to 153 patients who had received a bone-anchored hearing aid through the Nova Scotia bone-anchored hearing aid programme. The validated survey asked patients' partners to give their subjective impression of the bone-anchored hearing aid recipient's functional status.

Results and conclusions:

Surveys were completed by 90 patients (58.8 per cent), of whom 72 reported having a partner. Partners reported a significant improvement in hearing (p ≤ 0.0001). Partners reported improvement in 87.0 per cent of functional scenarios, no change in 12.6 per cent, and a decline in 0.4 per cent. These findings demonstrate a significant improvement in the emotional and social effects of hearing impairment, as perceived by bone-anchored hearing aid recipients' partners.

Keywords

Hearing LossHearing AidOsseo-IntegrationOutcome AssessmentsSpouses
Type
Main Articles
Information
The Journal of Laryngology & Otology , Volume 125 , Issue 6 , June 2011 , pp. 554 - 560
Copyright
Copyright © JLO (1984) Limited 2011

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Footnotes

Presented at the Second International Symposium on Bone Conduction Hearing – Craniofacial Osseointegration, 11–13 June 2009, Goteborg, Sweden, and at the Canadian Society of Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery 63rd Annual Meeting, 10–12 May 2009, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada

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