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Sound localization in patients with cochlear implant--preliminary results
Michal Luntz1, Alexander Brodsky, Hava Hafner
1Department of Otolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery, Faculty of Medicine Technology, Bnai Zion Medical Center, PO Box 4940, 7 Colomb Street, 31048 Haifa, Israel. luntz@csts.co.il
Objectives:
To evaluate sound localization ability in patients with unilateral cochlear implant, who do not wear a hearing aid on the contralateral ear, and to try to improve this ability by training.
Setting:
Tertiary academic referral center.
Methods:
In the initial test, patients were exposed to sound stimuli from different directions and were asked to localize them. Following a training period the patients were re-evaluated by the same test. For each test, the percentage of correct answers and the final test score were calculated.
Results:
In the initial test, the mean score of the study group of four cochlear implant users was 42.8 (out of a maximal score of 100), the mean rate of correct responses was 27.5%. Following a training period (6.5 sessions on the average), on the final test the mean score of the group was 74.3, while the mean rate of correct responses was 66.5%.
Conclusions:
The results demonstrated that patients with unilateral cochlear implant have some ability to localize sound, and that this ability may be improved by regular training.