Are smartphone applications (App) useful to improve hearing?
Por:
Martinez-Beneyto P, Franchella S, Alonso Rodriguez F, Navarro Velasquez R, Martinez-Beneito MA, Martini A and Marco Algarra J
Publicada:
1 ago 2020
Ahead of Print:
10 jun 2020
Categoría:
Otorhinolaryngology
Resumen:
The objective of the study is to assess whether a smartphone application (App) designed to improve healing can improve audiological performance in patients with normal bearing and with varying grades of hearing loss (HL). This is a multicentre prospective analytical study. We performed a battery of audiological tests consisting of pure tone audiometry (VIA) and a word recognition test (WRT) in quiet and in noise at different signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) using or not a smartphone App. Intra-subject results under both conditions were compared to determine the App's effect on hearing. A survey was also carried out to obtain data on subjective hearing experience with the App. We recruited 55 HL patients and 13 normalhearing controls between June to December 2017. The results show that use of the App in HL patients improved WRT scores by a mean of 30.3% in quiet, 24.3% in noise + 10 dB SNR. and 20.8% in + 5 dB SNR. App use was identified as a factor that increased word recognition (odds ratio = 1.812, p < 0.05) and 61% of subjects rated sound quality when using the App as good or excellent. The use of a smartphone healing App improved scores in both PTA and WRT in most cases. Patients with binaural hearing impairment < 60% obtained the best results. Subjective user satisfaction was good in both conditions.
Filiaciones:
Martinez-Beneyto P:
Servicio de Otorrinolaringologia, Hospital Clinico-Universitario, Valencia, Spain
Departamento de Cirugía, Facultad de Medicina, Universidad de Valencia, Spain
Franchella S:
Otorinolaringoiatria, Dipartimento di Neuroscienze DNS, Università degli Studi di Padova, Italy
Dipartimento di Salute della Donna e del Bambino SDB, Università degli Studi di Padova, Italy
Alonso Rodriguez F:
Servicio de Otorrinolaringologia, Hospital Clinico-Universitario, Valencia, Spain
Navarro Velasquez R:
Servicio de Otorrinolaringologia, Hospital Clinico-Universitario, Valencia, Spain
:
FISABIO, Fundacion para el fomento de la investigacion sanitaria y biomedica de la Comunidad Valenciana, Valencia, Spain
CIBER Epidemiología y Salud Pública (CIBERESP), Madrid, Spain
Martini A:
Otorinolaringoiatria, Dipartimento di Neuroscienze DNS, Università degli Studi di Padova, Italy
Marco Algarra J:
Servicio de Otorrinolaringologia, Hospital Clinico-Universitario, Valencia, Spain
Departamento de Cirugía, Facultad de Medicina, Universidad de Valencia, Spain
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