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Case Reports
. 2013 Mar-Apr;34(2):245-8.
doi: 10.1097/AUD.0b013e318269ce70.

Localization and speech understanding by a patient with bilateral cochlear implants and bilateral hearing preservation

Michael F Dorman  1 , Anthony J Spahr, Louise Loiselle, Ting Zhang, Sarah Cook, Chris Brown, William Yost
Affiliations
Case Reports

Localization and speech understanding by a patient with bilateral cochlear implants and bilateral hearing preservation

Michael F Dorman et al. Ear Hear. 2013 Mar-Apr.

Abstract

Objectives: The authors describe the localization and speech-understanding abilities of a patient fit with bilateral cochlear implants (CIs) for whom acoustic low-frequency hearing was preserved in both cochleae.

Design: Three signals were used in the localization experiments: low-pass, high-pass, and wideband noise. Speech understanding was assessed with the AzBio sentences presented in noise.

Results: Localization accuracy was best in the aided, bilateral acoustic hearing condition, and was poorer in both the bilateral CI condition and when the bilateral CIs were used in addition to bilateral low-frequency hearing. Speech understanding was best when low-frequency acoustic hearing was combined with at least one CI.

Conclusions: The authors found that (1) for sound source localization in patients with bilateral CIs and bilateral hearing preservation, interaural level difference cues may dominate interaural time difference cues and (2) hearing-preservation surgery can be of benefit to patients fit with bilateral CIs.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Audiograms pre- and postsurgery. Open circles indicate preimplant thresholds. Filled circles indicate thresholds at the time of testing.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Localization accuracy for low-pass noise (top), high-pass noise (middle), and wideband noise (bottom). Subjects: younger and older NH patients, bilateral HI listeners with and without hearing aids, bilateral CI patients, and a patient with bilateral CIs and bilateral hearing preservation. Test conditions: with and without implant, and with and without amplification (aids). Horizontal lines indicate mean scores. Shaded areas indicate chance performance. CNE, patient could not hear the signal, RMS, root mean square; NH, normal hearing; HI, hearing impaired; CI, cochlear implant.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

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