By Emily Sandgren and Joshua M. Alexander
This article is a part of the July/August, Volume 35, Number 4, Audiology Today issue.
Although speech-in-noise perception is the primary focus of hearing aid innovation, treatment goals, and outcome measures, less attention has been devoted to improving music perception with hearing aids. Patient-centered care includes considering other contributors to quality of life, such as sources of entertainment. Music is a significant source of entertainment contributing to the quality of life, as highlighted by data indicating that Americans 16–65 years of age and older listen to music for more than two hours per day (Delmonte, 2018).
Music listening is also important to hearing aid users. Greasley (2022) reported that hearing aid users actively engage with music, yet found that they often experience negative emotional consequences when they disengage from music due to the negative sound quality when using hearing aids (Greasley et al, 2020). This problem is well documented—hearing aid users consistently report dissatisfaction with sound quality, especially distortion, when listening to music with hearing aids (Greasley et al, 2020; Greasley, 2022; Madsen and Moore, 2014).
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