gms | German Medical Science

Hearing aids have come a long way in terms of technological development since the introduction of digital technology about 25 years ago. Modern hearing aids are intelligent systems automatically selecting the optimal signal processing for a given sound scene or communication situation. To enable that functionality, they include a plethora of signal processing schemes and wireless communication systems each aimed at providing optimal target enhancement. However, what is the benefit of all these function? On top of all the improvements in technology, the community also took the assessment of hearing aids to a new level. Today we take a much broader perspective on the benefit of hearing aids beyond the classic dimensions of audibility and speech intelligibility. As mentioned above, modern hearing aids include a range of different features and are offered at different technology levels with different features sets and value propositions at different price points. The main purpose of offering different, smaller or larger feature sets is mainly to be able to have options to meet the individual needs of a user and NOT to offer a device that is on average better for the entire group of people with hearing loss. In the audiological clinical community and literature, the performance difference and benefit users get from devices of different technology levels has been a point of controversial discussion with unclear results thus far. In this talk, I will try to summarize the rationale behind developing and offering devices at different technology levels with different feature sets and discuss the current state regarding this question.