Abstract
Objective: It is desirable for patients to have realistic expectations before surgery with preoperative use of a BAHA test-band. We aimed to investigate how much gain patients can obtain with preoperative use of a BAHA test-band with full-on gain and compared the results with those of BAHA users with the volume control at the comfortable level.
Method: Nineteen patients with single-sided deafness were included. Sound-field threshold and speech understanding were measured with naked ears under sound field (condition 1), with an ear-plug on the intact ear (condition 2), and with an ear-plug on the intact ear and a BAHA testband on the lesioned ear (condition 3).
Results: The speech reception thresholds (SRTs) at condition 2 were higher than those at condition 1 by 26 dB, which means that the sound attenuation by an ear-plug was 26 dB. Although SRTs (17 ± 7 dB HL) at condition 3 were similar to those (19 ± 9 dB HL) at condition 1, tonal thresholds at condition 3 were better at 1 and 2 kHz and poorer at 250 Hz compared to those at condition 1. Those hearing gains with a BAHA testband with full-on gain are similar to those of BAHA users with the volume level at the comfortable level.
Conclusion: Our findings suggest that the hearing gain by a BAHA testband with full-on gain is similar to the postoperative gains of BAHA users with the volume control at the comfortable level. BAHA candidates can experience a postoperative audiologic gain by preoperative use of a BAHA test-band with full-on gain.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.