This retrospective study supports early intervention and hearing rehabilitation with hearing amplification for adults. The authors included 103 patients (128 ears), who had undergone cochlear implantation over a seven-year period, in this study. All patients had been assessed for their preoperative pure tone hearing, unaided maximum monosyllabic word recognition score (WRSmax), aided hearing gain, aided monosyllabic word recognition score at 65dB [WRS65(HA)] and speech perception gap (SPG). The authors recorded duration of unaided hearing loss and compared the variables with post-cochlear implantation monosyllabic word recognition score at 65dB [WRS65(CI)]. The study results showed that patients with better preoperative WRSmax and WRS65(HA), irrespective of their pure tone hearing, performed better with CI. The SPG was found to be statistically significant and associated with WRSmax. Unaided hearing loss, irrespective of its duration, was inversely associated with WRSmax above 0% and this relationship was statistically significant. The authors conclude that the WRSmax, which represents cochlear reserve, may play a significant predictive role in CI outcomes. This confirms the importance of early hearing amplification for patients with hearing loss.
Preoperative unaided maximum monosyllabic word recognition score as a predictor of CI outcomes
Reviewed by Gauri Mankekar
Role of cochlear reserve in adults with cochlear implants following post-lingual hearing loss.
CONTRIBUTOR
Gauri Mankekar
Department of Otolaryngology-Head Neck Surgery, Louisiana State University Shreveport, Louisiana, USA.
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