Performance of cochlear implant patients while using bimodal stimulation and FM system

Abstract

Objectives: To study the effectiveness of bimodal stimulation coupled to FM system on the speech discrimination in noise, temporal discrimination and temporal resolution in patients with unilateral cochlear implant.Method: A total number of 28 subjects were examined in this study, they were divided into group I (19 subjects) with pre-lingual hearing loss and group II (9 subjects) with post-lingual hearing loss. Both groups had a residual hearing in the non-implanted ear that permits benefit from amplification. Full history taking, Questionnaire, Aided warble tone response, Arabic monosyllabic word test in quiet and in presence of background noise, Pitch discrimination test, Pitch pattern sequence test and Auditory fusion test-subtest 3.Results: There is significant statistical difference in CI patients' performance in most of tests while using bimodal stimulation with FM system coupled to CI than with bimodal stimulation alone or CI alone condition.Conclusions: It is recommended to use hearing aid in non-implanted ear in order to improve speech discrimination in noise, temporal discrimination and temporal resolution abilities.