By H. Gustav Mueller, Catherine Palmer, and Robert Turner
This article is a part of the March/April 2019, Volume 31, Number 2, Audiology Today issue.
Did you know that there are nearly 20 journals that publish articles related to hearing aid technology, signal processing, and fitting? And that each year, more than 200 articles are published related to hearing aids? In the words of the great philosopher Frank Zappa, “So much to read, so little time.” Well, we’re here to help!
For the past 16 years (or so), at each AAA annual conference, we have reviewed what we believe to be the top hearing aid articles from the past year. Our definition of top articles has a clinically practical slant—that is, we select well-designed articles where the findings might have a direct impact for audiologists fitting hearing aids. We typically choose representative articles from the different areas of the overall fitting process: prefitting testing, selection of signal processing, verification, and outcome measures. And, of course, there always are a few key articles specifically focused on the pediatric population.
As usual, there were several excellent articles published in 2018, and many of these had direct clinical relevance. For example, have you ever wondered if entry-level hearing aids perform just as well as premier models? You might recall that we talked about this a few years back when Robyn Cox and colleagues published their series of articles. Well, that topic is coming back in 2019, as Wu and co-workers at the University of Iowa conducted a similar comparison, which included both laboratory and real-world outcomes. Their design for data collection was a little different, however, as they used ecological momentary assessment (EMA) as part of the real-world portion. And, of course, there have been advances in the premier hearing aids, such as bilateral beamforming, since the Cox research.
So what model of hearing aid was the winner? Different from the Cox research? Are differences more likely to show up when EMA is used? We’ll give you the low-down at AAA 2019 in Columbus!
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