Audiologists nationwide will soon have new guidelines to follow when fitting hearing aids to adults, thanks to the work of Michael Valente, Ph.D., professor of clinical otolaryngology in the School of Medicine.
Valente, also director of the adult audiology program, recently chaired a task force for the American Academy of Audiology that developed a new national guideline on how hearing aids should be fitted for adults. It is the first national guideline to use evidence-based principles to support the recommendations, he said.
“The method, procedures and protocol the task force developed are based on the way hearing aids have been fit at the School of Medicine for the past decade,” Valente said. “It’s the standard that the academy wanted the rest of the country to follow.”
The Division of Adult Audiology in the School of Medicine has almost 13,000 patient visits per year and dispenses nearly 70 hearing aids per month. About 95 percent of those are digital. Valente’s Hearing Aid Research Laboratory has been actively involved in ongoing studies with various hearing-industry manufacturers for about 15 years.
Valente defined “fit” as making sure a hearing aid is the right style for the patient’s hearing loss and whether it provides the best possible amplification.
“We look at whether what is being fit to a person’s ear is the most appropriate solution for their hearing loss,” he said. “That’s part of what the guideline is all about.”
Valente said there are other tools to help people deal with hearing loss, such as amplification devices for telephones and televisions and wristwatches that vibrate instead of making an alarm sound.
Verification is perhaps the most unique and important aspect of the new guideline, Valente said. “In 70 percent of cases, audiologists simply download the manufacturer’s ‘First-Fit’ algorithms that are part of their software to a patient’s hearing aid without any external verification to determine if the fit is appropriate for the patient’s hearing loss,” Valente said. “Research has clearly shown that there will be a high probability for error using this approach because it’s not fine-tuned.
“Instead, we personally adjust and verify all fits before the patient leaves the office and confirm that the hearing aid is doing what’s appropriate for the hearing loss and satisfactory for the patient.
“You can have the world’s best hearing aid, but if it is not fitted properly, it’s garbage,” he added.
Valente said in the past five years, hearing aids have become much more advanced and are able to reduce the annoying background noise that causes difficulty for many hearing-aid wearers. The new generation of hearing aids also automatically softens sounds that come from behind and from the side of the wearer and is much better in controlling feedback, or a high-pitched squeal.
The Division of Adult Audiology recently rolled out a 15 percent discount on hearing aids to University faculty, staff and their family members. Each hearing aid includes a 30-day trial period, free follow-up visits, reprogramming and cleaning, and an orientation on the use, care and expectations from hearing aids, which can range in price from $750 to more than $3,000. Most hearing aids are not covered by insurance or Medicare. Division offices are at the Center for Advanced Medicine, Central Institute for the Deaf and in Creve Coeur, Mo.
For more information, call the Department of Otolaryngology at 362-7489 or 362-7509.