Objective: A postlingually deaf patient who receives a cochlear implant (CI) acquires multiple benefits, not just audiological but also nonaudiological: improvement in quality of life, psychological well-being, and social interaction. The aim of the study was to ascertain the relationship between the CI satisfaction experienced by adult, postlingually deaf individuals and their level of psychological distress, stress coping strategies, and global self-esteem. We also considered sociodemographic variables (such as sex, age, education, marital/partner status, and employment/study status), variables related to their deafness, and their length of experience with a CI. Design: The study had a cross-sectional design in which participants were asked to fill in a mailed personal inquiry form seeking sociodemographic data and one question related to CI satisfaction, and the following questionnaires: General Health Questionnaire-28, the Brief Coping Orientation to Problems Experienced, and the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale. This study included 98 patients with postlingual deafness between 19 and 85 years old who had unilateral CIs. For some analyses, the patients were also divided into two groups: younger (≤60 years) and older (>60 years). Two other subgroups were those with shorter CI experience (1 to 2 years) and those with longer CI experience (5 to 6 years). As an objective reference, speech perception scores in quiet and in noise were also used. Results: The majority of postlingually deaf subjects rated their CI satisfaction as high or very high, and this was at similar levels in younger and older subjects, as well as in those who had used CIs for either a short or a long time. CI satisfaction was not related to speech perception scores, duration of deafness, length of CI use, or other sociodemographic factors. Positive self-esteem, having less severe symptoms of depression, and the use of humor or self-distraction were conducive to CI satisfaction. Using a coping strategy of denial had a negative association with CI satisfaction. Coping strategies and symptoms of mental distress varied between younger and older subjects. For younger subjects, higher CI satisfaction was associated with lower severity of depressive symptoms, whereas for the elderly, higher CI satisfaction was associated with less severe social dysfunction symptoms. Over the years of using a CI, the same strategy may have a different psychological function in providing satisfaction: for example, venting, which in the group with a short CI experience is negatively correlated to satisfaction, is positively correlated to satisfaction for those with longer CI experience. Conclusions: The results show that psychological factors—self-esteem, distress, and coping strategies—are important for CI satisfaction in postlingually deaf CI users. The results point to advantages in widening the availability of various tailored forms of psychological intervention for patients with postlingual deafness after receiving a CI.

Objective: The aim of this study was to assess the diagnostic value of click-evoked otoacoustic emissions (CEOAEs) and tone-burst evoked otoacoustic emissions (TBOAEs) in identifying the residual hearing of subjects with partial deafness (PD)—a condition in which subjects have normal thresholds at low frequencies and severe-to-profound sensorineural hearing loss at high frequencies. Design: Otoacoustic emissions (OAEs) were measured in 23 subjects with severe-to-profound sensorineural hearing loss, 46 with PD, and 15 with normal hearing (NH). The PD subjects were divided into three subgroups according to the frequency at which hearing loss started: PD250 (NH up to 250 Hz)—20 ears; PD500 (NH to 500 Hz)—18 ears; and PD1000 (NH up to 1000 Hz)—20 ears. Standard-click stimuli, and 0.5- and 1-kHz tone bursts (average amplitude 80 ± 3 peak dB SPL, nonlinear averaging protocol), were used. The tone bursts were four cycles long with equal rise/fall times and no plateau. Recordings were performed in two acquisition windows: a standard one 20-msec wide for clicks and 1-kHz tone bursts, and one 30-msec wide for 0.5-kHz tone bursts. OAE response levels, signal-to-noise ratios, and reproducibility were examined in terms of wide-band responses and in terms of half-octave bands centered at 0.5 and 1 kHz. Receiver operator characteristic analysis was used to determine which type of stimuli best differentiates partially deaf subjects from subjects with severe-to-profound sensorineural hearing loss through the range 125 to 8000 Hz. Results: Nearly all recordings from groups PD500 and PD1000 showed 0.5-kHz TBOAEs. By contrast, 1-kHz TBOAEs and CEOAEs were generally found only in the PD1000 group. It was also possible to detect 0.5-kHz TBOAE responses in approximately 50% of ears from the PD250 group. Receiver operator characteristic analysis demonstrated that click and 1-kHz tone bursts provide a good diagnostic measure of residual hearing even when hearing loss starts as low as 1 kHz; moreover, the 0.5-kHz TBOAE could identify residual hearing when hearing loss started just > 0.5 kHz, a situation in which clicks failed to elicit a response. In the case of partially deaf subjects, diagnosis was more accurate when OAEs were analyzed by 1/2 octave bands. Furthermore, the use of a 0.5-kHz tone burst gave responses in the highest number of subjects, even when there were hearing losses in neighboring bands. Conclusions: The results of this study indicate that a 0.5-kHz TBOAE is a more powerful test than the standard CEOAE when cochlear function at low frequencies is of interest. The 0.5-kHz TBOAE may be used to identify partial deafness in patients who generally fail to show a response to the commonly used clicks. In addition, use of 1/2 octave-band filtering can increase the reproducibility and power of the test.

Background:The problem of the potential impact of personal music players on the auditory system remains an open question. The purpose of the present study was to investigate, by means of otoacoustic emissions (OAEs), whether listening to music on a p...

Several studies have suggested that distortion product otoacoustic emissions (DPOAEs) may be an early marker not only of hearing loss (HL) but also of tinnitus. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether DPOAEs measured up to 16 kHz are affected by the presence of tinnitus. Pure tone thresholds and DPOAEs were measured in two groups: 55 patients with tinnitus and 63 subjects without tinnitus. The subjects were divided into three groups according to their audiometric results—better than 25 dB HL at all tested frequencies from 0.125 to 16 kHz, better than 25 dB up to 8 kHz, and hearing impaired. Receiver operator characteristics (ROCs) were used to test whether DPOAEs could differentiate between normal hearing, hearing loss, and tinnitus. Comparison of tinnitus subjects with the control group, matched accurately according to thresholds, did not yield any significant difference in DPOAEs. However, in both these groups hearing loss was accompanied by a decrease in DPOAEs, specifically, at 2–6 kHz and 16 kHz. The results suggest that any decrease in DPOAEs seems to be related only to hearing loss and there is no additional effect from tinnitus.

The medial olivocochlear (MOC) system is thought to be responsible for modulation of peripheral hearing through descending (efferent) pathways. This study investigated the connection between peripheral hearing function and conscious attention during two different modality tasks, auditory and visual. Peripheral hearing function was evaluated by analyzing the amount of suppression of otoacoustic emissions (OAEs) by contralateral acoustic stimulation (CAS), a well-known effect of the MOC. Simultaneously, attention was evaluated by event-related potentials (ERPs). Although the ERPs showed clear differences in processing of auditory and visual tasks, there were no differences in the levels of OAE suppression. We also analyzed OAEs for the highest magnitude resonant mode signal detected by the matching pursuit method, but again did not find a significant effect of task, and no difference in noise level or number of rejected trials. However, for auditory tasks, the amplitude of the P3 cognitive wave negatively correlated with the level of OAE suppression. We conclude that there seems to be no change in MOC function when performing different modality tasks, although the cortex still remains able to modulate some aspects of MOC activity.