Benefits of speech recognition in noise using remote microphones for people with typical hearing.

Introduction: Remote microphone (RM) systems are designed to enhance speech recognition in noisy environments by improving the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) for individuals with typical hearing (TH) and hearing impairment (HI). The aim of this investigation was to evaluate the advantages of speech recognition in noise for individuals with TH in a simulated group setting using two different remote microphones.

Methods: A quasi-experimental, repeated-measures design was employed, involving ten participants with TH, ages 20 to 63 years.

Verification of EasyGain Settings in the Roger Remote Microphone System.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to evaluate how the EasyGain settings on a wireless receiver used with a remote microphone (RM) affected output as a function of hearing loss and receiver type.

Method: To assess the effects of the EasyGain setting on a Roger receiver, a Phonak Naida V90 superpower hearing aid (HA), two universal Roger X (02) receivers, two Roger 18 integrated receivers, and a Roger Inspiro transmitter were used. An electroacoustic evaluation was performed for five degrees of hearing loss ranging from a flat 40 to 80 dB HL, and for nine EasyGain settings from +8 to -8 dB with each Roger receiver.

An Intensive Approach to Improving Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in an Academic Emergency Department.

A healthcare workforce that demonstrates cultural competence and humility while reflecting the diversity of the surrounding community has the potential to significantly benefit the patient population it serves. In this context and given numerous societal influences and the events of 2020, the leadership of the Department of Emergency Medicine at Albany Medical Center recognized the need to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in multiple areas. These included premedical education, medical education, postgraduate medical education, faculty development, staff satisfaction, and patient care.

Speech Perception in Noise Predicts Oral Narrative Comprehension in Children With Developmental Language Disorder.

We examined the relative contribution of auditory processing abilities (tone perception and speech perception in noise) after controlling for short-term memory capacity and vocabulary, to narrative language comprehension in children with developmental language disorder. Two hundred and sixteen children with developmental language disorder, ages 6 to 9 years ( = 7; 6), were administered multiple measures. The dependent variable was children's score on the narrative comprehension scale of the .

Smartphone-based single-channel speech enhancement application for hearing aids.

This work presents a single-channel speech enhancement (SE) framework based on the super-Gaussian extension of the joint maximum a posteriori (SGJMAP) estimation rule. The developed SE algorithm is an open-source research smartphone-based application for hearing improvement studies. In this algorithm, the SGJMAP-based estimation for noisy speech mixture is smoothed along the frequency axis by a Mel filter-bank, resulting in a Mel-warped frequency-domain SGJMAP estimation.

Development and Pilot Testing of Smartphone-Based Hearing Test Application.

Background: Identifying and treating hearing loss can help improve communication skills, which often leads to improved quality of life. Many people do not seek medical treatment and, therefore, go undiagnosed for an extended period before realizing they have hearing loss. This study presents a self-administered, low-cost, smartphone-based hearing test application (HearTest) to quantify the pure-tone hearing thresholds of a user.

Communicating During COVID-19: The Effect of Transparent Masks for Speech Recognition in Noise.

Objective: The purpose of this study was to assess the speech recognition in noise when using a transparent mask that allows greater visibility of the talker's face compared to an opaque mask in persons with normal and impaired hearing via an online format.

Design: A repeated-measures design was used to evaluate the auditory-visual recognition of sentences recorded in background noise with transparent and opaque face masks, and without a mask (N = 154). In a smaller follow-up study (N = 29), the same files were presented via auditory-only presentation to determine if differences observed in the transparent and opaque mask conditions were attributable to additional visual cues or to acoustic differences between the recordings of the two mask types.

The Acoustic Transparency of Waterproof Smartphone Cases.

Phone use is a critical communication event in many people's lives. Audiologists have aimed to assist individuals with hearing loss and phone usage through the use of technology and counseling. To counsel effectively, all contributions to hearing difficulty on the phone must be considered, including the effects of smartphone cases.

Behavioral Validation of the Smartphone for Remote Microphone Technology.

As part of a National Institutes of Health-National Institute on Deafness and Other communication Disorders (NIH-NIDCD)-supported project to develop open-source research and smartphone-based apps for enhancing speech recognition in noise, an app called Smartphone Hearing Aid Research Project Version 2 (SHARP-2) was tested with persons with normal and impaired hearing when using three sets of hearing aids (HAs) with wireless connectivity to an iPhone. Participants were asked to type sentences presented from a speaker in front of them while hearing noise from behind in two conditions, HA alone and HA + SHARP-2 app running on the iPhone. The signal was presented at a constant level of 65 dBA and the signal-to-noise ratio varied from -10 to +10, so that the task was difficult when listening through the bilateral HAs alone.

Between the Listener and the Talker: Connectivity Options.

Hearing aids are often not sufficient for optimal communication between a listener and a talker. Therefore, numerous options for wireless connectivity between the listener and the talker designed to improve communication have become widely available. From the original wireless option of the induction loop system, most of the current solutions involve a digital signal with high quality and limited interference.

Guidelines for Best Practice in the Audiological Management of Adults with Severe and Profound Hearing Loss.

Individuals with severe to profound hearing loss are likely to present with complex listening needs that require evidence-based solutions. This document is intended to inform the practice of hearing care professionals who are involved in the audiological management of adults with a severe to profound degree of hearing loss and will highlight the special considerations and practices required to optimize outcomes for these individuals.

Benefits in Speech Recognition in Noise with Remote Wireless Microphones in Group Settings.

Background: Although hearing aids (HAs) and cochlear implants (CIs) can provide significant benefits to persons with hearing loss, users frequently report difficulty hearing in noisy environments, particularly when there are multiple talkers. Little is known about the benefits provided by currently available wireless microphones in multitalker situations.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to compare the benefits received in speech recognition in noise by adults with hearing loss when using two different wireless microphone types in a simulated group setting.

Intraosseous Basivertebral Nerve Ablation for the Treatment of Chronic Low Back Pain: 2-Year Results From a Prospective Randomized Double-Blind Sham-Controlled Multicenter Study.

Background: The purpose of the present study is to report the 2-year clinical outcomes for chronic low back pain (CLBP) patients treated with radiofrequency (RF) ablation of the basivertebral nerve (BVN) in a randomized controlled trial that previously reported 1-year follow up.

Methods: A total of 147 patients were treated with RF ablation of the BVN in a randomized controlled trial designed to demonstrate safety and efficacy as part of a Food and Drug Administration-Investigational Device Exemption trial. Evaluations, including patient self-assessments, physical and neurological examinations, and safety assessments, were performed at 2 and 6 weeks, and 3, 6, 12, 18, and 24 months postoperatively.

Integration of Entrustable Professional Activities with the Milestones for Emergency Medicine Residents.

Introduction: Medical education is moving toward a competency-based framework with a focus on assessment using the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education Milestones. Assessment of individual competencies through milestones can be challenging. While competencies describe characteristics of the person, the entrustable professional activities (EPAs) concept refers to work-related activities.

Using MMI Comments for Medical School Admissions Decision-Making.

This article was migrated. The article was marked as recommended. Introduction Multiple mini-interview (MMI) comments can help to reveal an underlying personality or behavioral flaw that the numerical scores are not designed to illustrate.

A Hearing Test Simulator GUI for clinical testing of speech recognition.

This paper presents an overview of a useful MATLAB based GUI for speech recognition testing to evaluate the subjects' ability in noisy environments with different SNR values. With this software package, stimuli are presented and the examiner is able to identify which words are correctly perceived. Test data can be collected in various conditions to measure the performance as signal-to-noise ratio or signal processing varies.

Intraosseous basivertebral nerve ablation for the treatment of chronic low back pain: a prospective randomized double-blind sham-controlled multi-center study.

Purpose: To evaluate the safety and efficacy of radiofrequency (RF) ablation of the basivertebral nerve (BVN) for the treatment of chronic low back pain (CLBP) in a Food and Drug Administration approved Investigational Device Exemption trial. The BVN has been shown to innervate endplate nociceptors which are thought to be a source of CLBP.

Methods: A total of 225 patients diagnosed with CLBP were randomized to either a sham (78 patients) or treatment (147 patients) intervention.

Cessation-related information, motivation, and behavioral skills in smokers living with HIV.

There is a need for new, targeted smoking cessation interventions for smokers living with HIV. The Information-Motivation-Behavioral Skills (IMB) model has been applied effectively to HIV-related health behaviors and was used in this qualitative study to elicit factors that could lead to the development of innovative and successful cessation interventions for this population. Twenty individuals who smoked from two clinics providing care to people living with HIV participated in open-ended interviews, responding to questions covering the domains of the IMB model, as applied to smokers living with HIV.

Smartphone-based noise adaptive speech enhancement for hearing aid applications.

It is well established that the presence of environmental noises has a negative impact on the performance of hearing aid devices. This paper addresses a noise adaptive speech enhancement solution for the purpose of improving the performance of hearing aid devices in noisy environments. Depending on three noise types of babble, machinery, and driving car, the parameters of a recently developed speech enhancement algorithm are appropriately adjusted to gain improved speech understanding performance in noisy environments.

Emergency medicine clerkship directors: current workforce.

Introduction: The emergency medicine clerkship director serves an important role in the education of medical students. The authors sought to update the demographic and academic profile of the emergency medicine clerkship director.

Methods: We developed and implemented a comprehensive questionnaire, and used it to survey all emergency medicine clerkship directors at United States allopathic medical schools accredited by the Liaison Committee on Medical Education.

Comparison of speech recognition with adaptive digital and FM remote microphone hearing assistance technology by listeners who use hearing aids.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to compare the benefits of 3 types of remote microphone hearing assistance technology (HAT), adaptive digital broadband, adaptive frequency modulation (FM), and fixed FM, through objective and subjective measures of speech recognition in clinical and real-world settings.

Method: Participants included 11 adults, ages 16 to 78 years, with primarily moderate-to-severe bilateral hearing impairment (HI), who wore binaural behind-the-ear hearing aids; and 15 adults, ages 18 to 30 years, with normal hearing. Sentence recognition in quiet and in noise and subjective ratings were obtained in 3 conditions of wireless signal processing.

State of undergraduate education in emergency medicine: a national survey of clerkship directors.

Background: The discipline of emergency medicine (EM) has rapidly changed over the past 10 years, resulting in greater involvement of the specialty in undergraduate medical education.

Objectives: The authors sought to present a review of how, when, and where EM is currently taught in U.S.