METHOD FOR EVALUATING THE EFFECTIVENESS OF HEARING PROSTHETICS AND SELECTING HEARING AIDS Russian patent published in 2022 - IPC A61B5/12 A61F11/04 H04R25/00 

FIELD: medicine.

SUBSTANCE: invention relates to medicine, namely, to methods for evaluating the effectiveness of hearing prosthetics and selecting hearing aids by using speech audiometry. Speech audiometry is therein performed using a PC and an acoustic system in a free acoustic field with the presentation of both pure speech material and with the presence of ipsilateral interference, and is conducted in 3 stages: measuring speech intelligibility on the "bare ear" without hearing aids, measuring speech intelligibility with the selected hearing aids binaurally and/or monaurally, and measuring speech intelligibility with other selected hearing aids or other setting variants. The "delta" difference in the speech intelligibility is calculated without hearing aids and with different variants of hearing aids and settings. Speech modulated noise is used, spectrally and dynamically close to a conversation against the background of ambient noise and music, produced by multiple superimposition of a fragment of noise recording with a time shift from 0.3 to 2 seconds. "Speech-in-noise" tests are mixed with noise with a different signal-to-noise ratio. The effectiveness of the hearing prosthetics and the selection of hearing aids is evaluated as "poor" with a speech intelligibility delta lower than 10%, "low" with a speech intelligibility delta of 10 to 20%, "satisfactory" with a speech intelligibility delta of 30 to 40%, "good" with a speech intelligibility delta of 50 to 60%, and "excellent" with a speech intelligibility delta of 70% and greater.

EFFECT: objective data obtained on the improvement of speech intelligibility with the selected or installed hearing aids, leading to an improvement in the quality of auditory and verbal rehabilitation.

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