Hearing Performance in Noise of Cochlear Implant Patients versus Severely-Profoundly Hearing-Impaired Patients with Hearing Aids:Rendimiento auditivo en ambiente ruidoso en pacientes con implante coclear versus hipoacúsicos profundos con auxiliar auditivo

It is possible for most post-lingually deaf patients to attain significant open speech recognition following cochlear implantation. In contrast, many severely-profoundly sensorineural hearing-impaired patients receive no benefit from their hearing aids, especially in situations with background noise. The aim of the study was to evaluate the speech recognition ability in quiet and in noise of post-lingually deaf adults implanted with Combi 40/40+ cochlear implants versus severely-profoundly sensorineural hearing-impaired patients fitted with hearing aids. For this purpose, we tested two groups of patients: one that had received cochlear implants (n=22) and a group of subjects with severe-profound sensorineural hearing impairment, fitted with hearing aids (n= 15). All of the patients were tested using the Hochmaier, Schultz, and Moser Discrimination Test in quiet and noise. The results of the study demonstrate that most of our cochlear implant patients received a substantial benefit from their implant, achi...