ADHEAR device in bone conduction audiometry.

Flurin Pfiffner,Rudolf Probst,Andrea Kegel

doi:10.1121/10.0009082

Abstract

ADHEAR is a bone conduction hearing aid that uses an adhesive skin adapter. In the current study, the use of ADHEAR as an audiometric bone stimulator was investigated in normal-hearing subjects by comparing it to the standard Radio-Ear B71. Bone conduction thresholds of 15 normal-hearing subjects (aged 21-36 years) were measured four times in a randomized order, twice with the B71 and twice with the ADHEAR. There were no significant differences in test-retest reliability between the two devices. Subjectively rated comfort was better for the ADHEAR. The development of a specific audiometric adhesive bone stimulator may be warranted.

Highlights

The measurement of bone conduction (BC) thresholds is an important and routine procedure in clinical audiometry
It is important to note that differences in the frequency responses of both devices in Fig. 3 are due to several factors, such as the different electro-mechanical properties of the transducers, differences in mechanical point impedances, and the different type of coupling the device to the mastoid (Chang and Stenfelt, 2019)
The current study investigated the principle of using a bone vibrator attached via an adhesive patch as an audiometric BC stimulator

Summary

Introduction

The measurement of bone conduction (BC) thresholds is an important and routine procedure in clinical audiometry. It helps to establish a diagnosis of BC hearing loss (HL). Measuring BC hearing thresholds is technically more demanding and less reliable than measuring air conduction (AC) thresholds (Carhart, 1950; Studebaker, 1962). The electro-mechanical properties of BC transducers (Frohlich et al, 2018) lead to reduced ranges of frequencies and levels compared to AC transducers. The BC transducers are typically more difficult to place reliably than the headphones used for AC stimulation. Resulting differences in contact position and pressure have been shown to affect the test-retest variability of BC hearing thresholds (Dobrev et al, 2016)

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