1992 Volume 85 Issue 2 Pages 181-189
During the past 3 years in a section providing hearing aid service in our hospital, 266 outpatients have been examined and fitting with hearing aids.
We analysed their background factor: age, occupation, diagnosis, complications, hearing level, speech discrimination, use of hearing aids.
Most patients were 50 to 70 years old, their hearing levels were 40-70dB and speech discrimination scores were more than 50% in the hearing aided ears. Their hearing levels varied widely, but speech discrimination scores were generally low, and many scores were less than 10% in unaided ears.
We classified the patients' audiograms into eight types: flat, gradual, mountain, valley, dip, high cut, low deaf, profound type. On the aided side, many ears were gradual type and flat type; the unaided side tended to have the same type.
The main situations in which many patients had trouble were “at meetings or conferences”, “always”, “in the house, watching television, using the telephone”, etc.
We must always consider the patients' backgrounds and individual differences and we put the hearing aids to practical use.
