Case Study: Auditory Training Provides Patient Benefit Just in Time for the Holidays

Recently, a patient by the name of “Anna” successfully completed a 12-session course of one-on-one auditory training with one of our team of audiologists and audiology externs and we believe her case is yet another wonderful example of the benefits of auditory training.

More about “Anna”:

• A female in her mid-70’s, “Anna” has a significant degree of bilateral hearing loss and is a long-time hearing aid user. Audiometrically, she meets the criteria for cochlear implant candidacy but has elected not to pursue that treatment option at this time.
• Her hearing loss is the most common type: sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL). SHNL can be due to age, noise exposure, side effects of medications, genetics, other health conditions, or a combination of all of the above.
• Though she receives a great deal of benefit from her hearing aids, the degree of her hearing loss prevents “Anna” from understanding speech as well as she would like in a variety of situations, in particular restaurants and meetings.
• She also reports difficulty remembering speech that she believes she understood in real-time.
• Socially, “Anna” splits her time between the Philadelphia suburbs and Florida and enjoys meeting with friends within the home, at restaurants, and parties. She also enjoys travelling and sightseeing with her husband.

More about synchronous (one-on-one) auditory training:

• 12 one-hour sessions, scheduled weekly
• Each session includes listening exercises with the goal of improving the brain’s ability to make sense of what the ears send to it. In Anna’s case, her auditory processing skills needed to overcome the deficits and distorted sound that her ears create, even with proper amplification. (Deficits and distortions that are common with her type and degree of hearing loss and are the reason that hearing aids do not provide “20/20” hearing.)

“Anna’s” Outcome:

• After the 12 sessions of auditory training, “Anna” subjectively felt that she was able to understand speech better in many situations, including restaurants and parties. “You know, with it being the holiday season, I’ve been to a few parties and I’m much better off than I was before the sessions,” she reported. She also feels as if her memory has improved.
• Before and after the 12 sessions of auditory training, our audiologists tested Anna’s speech understanding abilities and the data is consistent with her perception of improvement. Sentences were presented to “Anna” at typical conversational levels in three different conditions: no competing noise, moderate competing noise (+10 dB SNR), and severe competing noise (+5 dB SNR). While she did not exhibit improvement in severe noise situations, we measured significant improvement in the quiet and moderate noise conditions, which is consistent with her reports of improved ability to understand speech at parties.
• An additional test was used pre- and post-auditory training: Phonemic synthesis. Phonemic synthesis is a person’s ability to discriminate phonemes (the individual sounds of speech such as “th”, “sh”, “ah”, etc.) and “synthesize” them into words. Again, “Anna” displayed tremendous improvement.

Next steps for Anna:

• While wintering in Florida, Anna will utilize an auditory training app offered by our partners at Neurotone, LACE AI Pro.
• When she returns to the Philadelphia area in the spring, “Anna” would like to discuss the benefits of additional one-on-one auditory training and/or upgrading hearing aid technology.

To find out if asynchronous or synchronous auditory training can help you understand speech better, call our office and schedule a consultation today. While initial evaluations are performed in-office, auditory training sessions can be performed over video chat technology or in the office.

West Chester: 610-431-2411
Wayne: 610-688-6003
Malvern: 610-408-9250