Abstract
Objective: Cochlear implants are a well-established treatment method in severe to profound hearing loss. It is important to assess the benefits in term of health-related quality of life (HR QoL) not only on auditory-verbal performances.
Method: We compared the HRQoL between a hearing aid group (50 patients) and a cochlear implant group (84 patients), split into 2 subgroups, according to the age of implantation. We used the Nijmegen HRQoL questionnaire. All implanted patients had MedEl devices and more than 6 months experience with the speech processor.
Results: Although there were differences between children with hearing aids and children with implants in all areas of HRQoL, in the physical area these differences were greater than for psychological and social domains. HRQoL was positively correlated with auditory performance and speech intelligibility and negatively correlated with implantation age. Good auditory performance and speech intelligibility had a positive influence on HRQoL. The correlation coefficient, R = 0.78, indicates a very good linear and directly proportional correlation between the 3 variables, implantation age, SIR, and CAP and HRQoL. A total of 59.5% of quality of life’s variation is explained by the variation of these 3 parameters.
Conclusion: Cochlear implant improves the auditory performance and speech production more than hearing aids. Children implanted at a younger age develop better than older patients, but even the older patients demonstrate good performances if they are properly selected. Associated diseases had a negative effect on outcomes, but cochlear implants improve their quality of life.
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