Preliminary Evaluation of the Usefulness of Hearing Tests Using Tablet Device Applications in Healthy Volunteers

Abstract

Since drug-induced hearing loss markedly diminishes the quality of life, the early detection of such hearing impairment is recommended. We evaluated the utility of tablet device applications for the early screening of hearing loss preliminarily. The subjects were 14 healthy young adults (in their 20's) and 6 middle-aged and elderly adults (30's or older). As the standard device, we employed a pure-tone audiometry device used in the clinic. In the pure-tone hearing test (125 - 8,000 Hz) using the standard device, there was no significant difference between young and middle-aged/elderly subjects. However, the middle-aged/elderly subjects revealed a significant difference in the higher frequency range (12,000 Hz or more) compared to the young subjects in the hearing test using two different applications, “Senses” and “Audiometry”. The results indicated the different characteristics of the standard pure-tone audiometry device and tablet device applications. Although we should clinically confirm hearing loss using the standard pure-tone audiometry device, the tablet device application “Senses” may be useful for the early and simple screening of high-frequency hearing loss such as drug-induced hearing loss.