Maria Conceição Peixoto*, Rui Pratas, Cristina Miranda, Mafalda Bento and Victor Correia da Silva
Auditory Implant Unit, Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Cuf Porto Hospital, Portugal
*Corresponding Author: Maria Conceição Peixoto, Auditory Implant Unit, Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Cuf Porto Hospital, Portugal.
Received: October 15, 2022; Published: November 24, 2022
Objective: The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of a totally implantable active middle ear implant in quality of life of the implanted patients taking into account their hearing performance.
Methods: Retrospective observational nonrandomized group study. Settings: Private hospital. From March 2018 and September 2019, all the participant with minimum 6 months’ experience with the Carina system were evaluated. The evaluation was performed using the Abbreviated Profile of Hearing Aid Benefit (APHAB) questionnaire.
Results: Nine patients complete the entire questionnaire. A reduction of difficulties was seen in quiet environments/ease of communication (32.8% vs 54.3%), in background noise environments (42.8% vs 62.3%) and in environments with reverberation (38.7% vs 63.9%) in the patient with the active middle ear implant when compared to the unaided condition. In what concerned the trouble caused by unpleasant sounds/Aversiveness, an increased discomfort was described with de middle ear implant compared to the unaided condition (50.3% vs 32.8%).
Conclusion: Active middle ear implants seem to improve auditory perception in daily activities, even in difficult conditions like background noise or reverberation environments, although statistically significant conclusions cannot be achieved due to the small sample size. APHAB demonstrated to be a potential useful tool in this evaluation.
Keywords: Active Middle Ear Prosthesis; Carina Implant; Middle Ear Transducer; Quality of Life; Hearing
Citation: Maria Conceição Peixoto., et al. “Impact on Daily Life of an Active Middle Ear Implant".Acta Scientific Otolaryngology 4.12 (2022): 24-28.
Copyright: © 2022 Maria Conceição Peixoto., et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.