ABSTRACT
Purpose
To describe the benefits in hearing thresholds and sentence recognition performance in silence and noise, in users of the unilateral Ponto® system.
Methods
An observational, retrospective, longitudinal study. The sample consisted of secondary data sources from 10 individuals with conductive or mixed hearing loss who underwent surgery with the Ponto® System. The results were analyzed in the following pre-surgical conditions (without hearing aids; with hearing aids by air or bone conduction; with the Ponto Pro® processor with a soft band) and post-surgical (on activation and after six months of use).
Results
The thresholds of pure tone audiometry by air and bone conductions remained stable after surgery, while the auditory thresholds in free field and speech recognition in silence and in noise were statistically better when using the Ponto® system. There was no difference between the results obtained with the individuals using Ponto® with soft band and post-surgically.
Conclusion
The Ponto® system provided benefits in hearing detection skills in all tested frequencies, as well as, in recognition of the sentence in silence and noise.
Keywords:
Ossicular prosthesis; Speech audiometry; Bone conduction; Audiometry; Hearing aids
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Subtitle: HZ = hertz; RE-AW = right ear-airway; RE-BP = right ear-bone pathway; RL-AW = left ear-airway; RL-BP = left ear bone-pathway; Wilcoxon test p> 0.05
Subtitle: Hz = hertz; HA = individual hearing aid; Friedman test (p <0.001); Different letters (a, b, c, d, e) on the line indicate significant differences (p ≤ 0.05) between the conditions evaluated (Tukey test)
Subtitle: HA = hearing aids; *a - c, d, e; Different letters (a, b, c, d, e) in the column indicate significant differences (p ≤ 0.05) between the conditions evaluated