Towards Auditory Profile-Based Hearing-Aid Fitting: Fitting Rationale and Pilot Evaluation

• Main Authors: Raul Sanchez-Lopez, Michal Fereczkowski, Sébastien Santurette, Torsten Dau, Tobias Neher
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2021-01-01
• Series: Audiology Research
• Subjects: audiology; hearing-aid fitting; hearing-aid settings; hearing loss compensation
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2039-4349/11/1/2

<i>Background</i>—The clinical characterization of hearing deficits for hearing-aid fitting purposes is typically based on the pure-tone audiogram only. In a previous study, a group of hearing-impaired listeners completed a comprehensive test battery that was designed to tap into different dimensions of hearing abilities. A data-driven analysis of the data yielded four clinically relevant patient sub-populations or “auditory profiles”. The purpose of the current study was to propose and pilot-test profile-based hearing-aid settings in order to explore their potential for providing more targeted hearing-aid treatment. <i>Methods</i>—Four candidate hearing-aid settings were developed and evaluated by a subset of the participants tested previously. The evaluation consisted of multi-comparison preference ratings that were carried out in realistic sound scenarios. <i>Results</i>—Listeners belonging to the different auditory profiles showed different patterns of preference for the tested hearing-aid settings that were largely consistent with the expectations. <i>Conclusions</i>—The results of this pilot evaluation support further investigations into stratified, profile-based hearing-aid fitting with wearable hearing aids.