The effect of an active transcutaneous bone conduction device on spatial release from masking

Area of Science:

• Audiology
• Hearing Science
• Biomedical Engineering

Background:

• Conductive and mixed hearing loss can impair speech understanding, particularly in noisy environments.
• Spatial release from masking (SRM) is crucial for speech perception in complex auditory scenes.
• Bone conduction implants (BCI) offer a therapeutic option for hearing loss, but their impact on spatial hearing requires quantification.

Purpose of the Study:

• To quantify the effect of an experimental active transcutaneous bone conduction implant (BCI) on spatial release from masking (SRM).
• To evaluate BCI's impact on speech recognition thresholds (SRT) in patients with conductive and mixed hearing loss.

Main Methods:

• Measurements conducted in a sound booth with five loudspeakers simulating various sound source locations.
• Target speech presented frontally, with interfering speech from co-located or spatially separated sources.
• SRM calculated as the difference between separated and co-located speech recognition thresholds (SRT).

Main Results:

• A positive SRM was observed in all subjects unaided and in 75% aided.
• Aided SRM was lower than unaided SRM in nine subjects.
• SRT improved in patients with bilateral hearing loss when aided, while it was maintained for unilateral hearing loss patients.

Conclusions:

• Unilateral BCI implantation in patients with conductive/mixed hearing loss may reduce SRM.
• BCI demonstrates potential for improving or maintaining SRT, offering benefits for speech intelligibility in challenging listening conditions.