A Survey on Hearing Health of Musicians in Professional and Amateur Orchestras.

Hearing health, a cornerstone for musical performance and appreciation, often stands at odds with the unique acoustical challenges that musicians face. Utilizing a cross-sectional design, this survey-based study presents an in-depth examination of self-rated hearing health and its contributing factors in 370 professional and 401 amateur musicians recruited from German-speaking orchestras. To probe the nuanced differences between these groups, a balanced subsample of 200 professionals and 200 amateurs was curated, matched based on age, gender, and instrument family.

ICF-based hearing and functioning assessment: validation and research outcomes of utilizing the HEAR-COMMAND tool for patients with mild to moderately severe hearing loss and individuals with normal hearing.

Objective: Current clinical assessments for Hearing Loss (HL) are often limited to controlled laboratory settings in which a narrow spectrum of hearing difficulties can be assessed. A majority of the daily life challenges caused by HL cannot be measured in clinical methodologies. To screen the individuals' needs and limitations, a questionnaire named the HEAR-COMMAND tool was developed and qualitatively validated through an international collaboration, aligning with the World Health Organization's International Classification of Functioning, Disability, and Health Framework (ICF) Core Sets for Hearing Loss.

The Impact of Hearing Aids on Listening Effort and Listening-Related Fatigue - Investigations in a Virtual Realistic Listening Environment.

Participation in complex listening situations such as group conversations in noisy environments sets high demands on the auditory system and on cognitive processing. Reports of hearing-impaired people indicate that strenuous listening situations occurring throughout the day lead to feelings of fatigue at the end of the day. The aim of the present study was to develop a suitable test sequence to evoke and measure listening effort (LE) and listening-related fatigue (LRF), and, to evaluate the influence of hearing aid use on both dimensions in mild to moderately hearing-impaired participants.

[Automatic hearing screening for better monitoring of hearing health using the example of the German armed forces].

In the present study, the concept of a systematic automated screening of temporary soldiers was evaluated based on the example of the ENT Department of the Bundeswehr Central Hospital Koblenz. From 2014 to 2017, anonymized data of 169 individuals were collected from the setting of the Bundeswehr Central Hospital. Included in the data are results from measurements with automated pure-tone audiometry (APTA; e.

A dependent Bayesian Dirichlet process model for source apportionment of particle number size distribution.

The relationship between particle exposure and health risks has been well established in recent years. Particulate matter (PM) is made up of different components coming from several sources, which might have different level of toxicity. Hence, identifying these sources is an important task in order to implement effective policies to improve air quality and population health.

Vehicle noise: comparison of loudness ratings in the field and the laboratory.

Objective: Distorted loudness perception is one of the main complaints of hearing aid users. Measuring loudness perception in the clinic as experienced in everyday listening situations is important for loudness-based hearing aid fitting. Little research has been done comparing loudness perception in the field and in the laboratory.

TB screening, prevention and treatment cascade in a Malawi prison.

Incarcerated individuals, especially in high HIV and TB burden settings, are at increased risk of latent TB infection and/or TB disease. We implemented a comprehensive HIV-TB intervention in a Malawi prison and studied its feasibility. Between February and December 2019, consenting individuals underwent screening for HIV, TB infection and TB disease.

Conformities and gaps of clinical audiological data with the international classification of functioning disability and health core sets for hearing loss.

Objective: The International Classification of Functioning Disability and Health (ICF) is a classification of health and health-related domains created by the World Health Organization and can be used as a standard to evaluate the health and disability of individuals. The ICF Core Set for Hearing Loss (CSHL) refers to the ICF categories found to be relative to Hearing Loss (HL) and the consequences of it on daily life. This study aimed to adapt the content of a database gathered in Hörzentrum Oldenburg gGmbH that included HL medical assessments and audiological data to the ICF.

Numerical Evaluation of Human Body Near Field Exposure to a Vehicular Antenna for Military Applications.

Background: The use of electromagnetic (EM) technologies for military applications is gaining increasing interest to satisfy different operational needs, such as improving battlefield communications or jamming counterpart's signals. This is achieved by the use of high-power EM waves in several frequency bands (e.g.

Changing the narrative for hearing health in the broader context of healthy living: a call to action.

Objective: To discuss the steps necessary to facilitate hearing health care in the context of well-being and healthy living.

Design: Common themes among the articles in this special supplement of the International Journal of Audiology were used to identify issues that must be addressed if audiology is to move from being hearing-focussed to taking a holistic perspective of hearing care in the context of healthy aging. These are discussed within the context of other published literature.

Individual Hearing Aid Benefit in Real Life Evaluated Using Ecological Momentary Assessment.

Ecological momentary assessment (EMA) was used in 24 adults with mild-to-moderate hearing loss who were seeking first hearing-aid (HA) fitting or HA renewal. At two stages in the aural rehabilitation process, just before HA fitting and after an average 3-month HA adjustment period, the participants used a smartphone-based EMA system for 3 to 4 days. A questionnaire app allowed for the description of the environmental context as well as assessments of various hearing-related dimensions and of well-being.

The Virtual Reality Lab: Realization and Application of Virtual Sound Environments.

To assess perception with and performance of modern and future hearing devices with advanced adaptive signal processing capabilities, novel evaluation methods are required that go beyond already established methods. These novel methods will simulate to a certain extent the complexity and variability of acoustic conditions and acoustic communication styles in real life. This article discusses the current state and the perspectives of virtual reality technology use in the lab for designing complex audiovisual communication environments for hearing assessment and hearing device design and evaluation.

Influence of working memory and attention on sound-quality ratings.

This study investigated the potential influence of cognitive factors on subjective sound-quality ratings. To this end, 34 older subjects (ages 61-79) with near-normal hearing thresholds rated the perceived sound quality of speech and music stimuli that had been distorted by linear filtering, non-linear processing, and multiband dynamic compression. In addition, all subjects performed the Reading Span Test (RST) to assess working memory capacity (WMC), and the test d2-R (a visual test of letter and symbol identification) was used to assess the subjects' selective and sustained attention.

Pediatric Celiac Disease - A Review.

Our understanding of celiac disease is rapidly expanding. Previously thought to be a rare food intolerance, celiac disease is now recognized as a multifactorial autoimmune disorder with a vast array of presentations. Symptoms range from classic diarrhea, weight loss, and abdominal pain to constipation and extra-intestinal manifestations including anemia, elevated transaminase levels, osteoporosis, or aphthous stomatitis.

What Keeps Older Adults With Hearing Impairment From Adopting Hearing Aids?

The aim of this study was to compare elderly individuals who are hearing impaired but inexperienced in using hearing aids (hearing aid non-users; HA-NU) with their aided counterparts (hearing aid users; HA-U) across various auditory and non-auditory measures in order to identify differences that might be associated with the low hearing aid uptake rate. We have drawn data of 72 HA-NU and 139 HA-U with a mild-to-moderate hearing loss, and matched these two groups on the degree of hearing impairment, age, and sex. First, HA-NU and HA-U were compared across 65 auditory, cognitive, health-specific, and socioeconomic test measures as well as measures assessing technology commitment.

Relation Between Listening Effort and Speech Intelligibility in Noise.

Purpose: Subjective ratings of listening effort might be applicable to estimate hearing difficulties at positive signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs) at which speech intelligibility scores are near 100%. Hence, ratings of listening effort were compared with speech intelligibility scores at different SNRs, and the benefit of hearing aids was evaluated.

Method: Two groups of listeners, 1 with normal hearing and 1 with hearing impairment, performed adaptive speech intelligibility and adaptive listening effort tests (Adaptive Categorical Listening Effort Scaling; Krueger, Schulte, Brand, & Holube, 2017) with sentences of the Oldenburg Sentence Test (Wagener, Brand, & Kollmeier, 1999a, 1999b; Wagener, Kühnel, & Kollmeier, 1999) in 4 different maskers.

Feasibility of district wide screening of health care workers for tuberculosis in Zambia.

Background: Many health care workers (HCWs) are at increased risk for tuberculosis (TB). The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends screening HCWs for TB in high burden settings but this is often not implemented in countries with a high TB incidence. We assessed the feasibility of TB screening among HCWs, including participation rate and yield, as part of a project introducing facility specific TB interventions.

Assessment of hearing aid algorithms using a master hearing aid: the influence of hearing aid experience on the relationship between speech recognition and cognitive capacity.

Objectives: Model-based hearing aid development considers the assessment of speech recognition using a master hearing aid (MHA). It is known that aided speech recognition in noise is related to cognitive factors such as working memory capacity (WMC). This relationship might be mediated by hearing aid experience (HAE).

Auditory and Non-Auditory Contributions for Unaided Speech Recognition in Noise as a Function of Hearing Aid Use.

Differences in understanding speech in noise among hearing-impaired individuals cannot be explained entirely by hearing thresholds alone, suggesting the contribution of other factors beyond standard auditory ones as derived from the audiogram. This paper reports two analyses addressing individual differences in the explanation of unaided speech-in-noise performance among = 438 elderly hearing-impaired listeners ( = 71.1 ± 5.

Development and psychometric properties of the sound preference and hearing habits questionnaire (SP-HHQ).

Objective: The aim of the study was, based on the individualisation of hearing aids (HA) and pre-sets for audio devices, to develop a questionnaire to determine the basis for profiling sound preferences and hearing habits to gather additional information usable for HA fitting and adjustment tools for audio-devices.

Methods: We developed a questionnaire consisting of 46 items. A postal survey was conducted with N = 622 users with a mean age of 66 years (47.

A novel approach for discovering human behavior patterns using unsupervised methods.

Background: As is well known, elderly people gradually lose the ability of self-care. The decline can be reflected in changes in their daily life behavior. A solution to assess their health status is to design sensor-enhanced living environments to observe their behavior, in which unobtrusive sensors are usually used.

Intention to use hearing aids: a survey based on the theory of planned behavior.

Objective: To determine the intention to use hearing aids (HAs) by applying the theory of planned behavior (TPB).

Design: The TPB is a widely used decision-making model based on three constructs hypothesized to influence the intention to perform a specific behavior; namely, "attitude toward the behavior", "subjective norm", and "behavioral control". The survey was based on a TPB-specific questionnaire addressing factors relevant to HA provision.

Development of a German reading span test with dual task design for application in cognitive hearing research.

Objective: To report the development of a standardized German version of a reading span test (RST) with a dual task design. Special attention was paid to psycholinguistic control of the test items and time-sensitive scoring. We aim to establish our RST version to use for determining an individual's working memory in the framework of hearing research in German contexts.

Multimodal activity monitoring for home rehabilitation of geriatric fracture patients--feasibility and acceptance of sensor systems in the GAL-NATARS study.

Background: Demographic change will lead to a diminishing care workforce faced with rising numbers of older persons in need of care, suggesting meaningful use of health-enabling technologies, and home monitoring in particular, to contribute to supporting both the carers and the persons in need.

Objectives: We present and discuss the GAL-NATARS study design along with first results regarding technical feasibility of long-term home monitoring and acceptance of different sensor modalities.

Methods: Fourteen geriatric participants with mobility-impairing fractures were recruited in three geriatric clinics.