Chisolm Theresa Hnath, Noe Colleen M, McArdle Rachel, Abrams Harvey
University of South Florida, Tampa, Florida 33620, USA.
Trends Amplif. 2007 Jun;11(2):73-89. doi: 10.1177/1084713807300879.
Hearing assistive technologies include listening, alerting, and/or signaling devices that use auditory, visual, and/or tactile modalities to augment communication and/or facilitate awareness of environmental sounds. The importance of hearing assistive technologies in the management of adults with hearing loss was recently acknowledged in an evidence-based clinical practice guideline developed by the American Academy of Audiology. Most currently available evidence for hearing assistive technology use by adults focuses on frequency-modulated (FM) technology. Previous research is reviewed that demonstrates the efficacy of FM devices for adults in terms of laboratory measures of speech understanding in noise. Also reviewed are the outcomes from field trials of FM use by community-dwelling adults, which, to date, have been disappointing. Few to no individuals, in previous studies, elected to use FM devices at the end of the trial periods. Data are presented from a 1-group pretest-posttest study examining the role of extensive counseling, coaching, and instruction on FM use by adults. In addition, the potential influence of the cost of devices to the individual was eliminated by conducting the study with veterans who were eligible to receive FM systems through the Veterans Affairs National Hearing Aid Program. Positive outcomes were obtained at the end of a 6-week trial period and were found to remain 1 year after study completion. Implications for increasing the evidence base for the use of FM devices by adults are discussed.
听力辅助技术包括使用听觉、视觉和/或触觉模式来增强沟通和/或促进对环境声音感知的聆听、警报和/或信号装置。美国听力学会制定的一项循证临床实践指南最近认可了听力辅助技术在成年听力损失患者管理中的重要性。目前关于成年人使用听力辅助技术的大多数现有证据都集中在调频（FM）技术上。本文回顾了先前的研究，这些研究表明FM设备在噪声环境下言语理解的实验室测量方面对成年人具有有效性。同时也回顾了社区居住成年人使用FM的现场试验结果，迄今为止，这些结果并不理想。在先前的研究中，很少有人甚至没有人在试验期结束时选择使用FM设备。本文展示了一项单组前后测研究的数据，该研究考察了广泛的咨询、指导和关于成年人使用FM的培训的作用。此外，通过对有资格通过退伍军人事务部国家助听器计划获得FM系统的退伍军人进行研究，消除了设备成本对个人的潜在影响。在为期6周的试验期结束时获得了积极的结果，并且在研究完成1年后这些结果仍然存在。本文讨论了增加成年人使用FM设备证据基础的意义。
