Clinical experiences with communication instruments in adults with sensorineural hearing loss

Progress in the field of auditory rehabilitation of adult patients with sensorineural hearing loss has been made possible by combined contributions from technology, successively manufacturing better hearing aids and additional communication instruments, institutional arrangements and the achievements within clinical audiology, successively resulting in better knowledge of several basic diagnostic and therapeutic factors. Hearing aid fitting, as is well known, is still a controversial area because of many unknown factors. The same holds true for auditory training and speech reading, which have in practice been shown to be useful as a therapeutic complement to hearing aid fitting in many adult patients with sensorineural hearing loss. It was thus shown to be possible to fit the great majority of the patients with head-worn instruments. The variety of available alternatives within the communication instruments (vented molds, output-limiting devices, special microphones, CROS hearing aids) has increased the number of appropriately fitted patients. Special communications devices in addition to hearing aids for patients with difficulties to listen to signals, TV, etc., and complementary speech-reading treatment to severely hearing-impaired patients, have improved the listening situation of many patients. However, too much of clinical audiology is still based merely on clinical experience. To make progress in this field further research in clinical audiology is necessary in order to further clarify several diagnostic and therapeutic factors.