Разборчивость речи у пациентов разного возраста с хронической сенсоневральной тугоухостью

Abstract

Deterioration in speech intelligibility, the most common complaint of people with hearing loss, leads to social isolation and dramatically reduces the quality of life. The correction of peripheral hearing loss by hearing aid fitting does not always solve this problem in patients with chronic sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL). That is why in the process of audiological examination of patients with complaints of hearing loss, it is necessary to include methods of speech audiometry, which make it possible to comprehensively assess the functioning of the auditory system. The aim of the study: assessment of speech intelligibility in patients of different ages with SNHL. 94 people from 20 to 74 years of age were examined: 54 patients with SNHL (14 young and 40 elderly) and 40 people with normal hearing thresholds (20 young and 20 elderly). Besides the standard audiological examination, speech audiometry testing was conducted: evaluation of monosyllabic words intelligibility in quiet, binaural rapidly alternating speech test, dichotic digits test, Russian matrix sentence test (RuMatrix). Results: Speech intelligibility in elderly patients with SNHL was shown to be significantly worse than in young patients with a similar degree of hearing loss. The RuMatrix test in noise was proved to be the most sensitive test for comprehensive evaluation of the hearing system functioning.