Highlights from the BEAR project were planned to be presented by Dorte Hammershøi at the Baltic-Nordic Acoustical Meeting, May 4-6 2020, in Oslo, Norway. The conference and the presentation is due to the COVID-19 situation postponed till May 3-5, 2021.

Better hearing rehabilitation for adult first‐time users (the BEAR project)

Dorte Hammershøi
Department of Electronic Systems, Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark

First‐time adult hearing‐aids users do not always experience the debut with success, and it is known that some give up. For the professional fitting the hearing aid, it is often a difficult detective work to figure out, if the hearing aid is poorly fitted to the individual, or whether it is set for best performance. The purpose of the BEAR is to develop a stronger framework for the diagnostics, fitting an assessment of the aided performance that will allow for a more structured, and personalized approach. The project includes several scientific efforts, incl. 1) the collection of data for almost 2.000 patients fitted according to current practice, 2) development and assessment of new diagnostics for profiling and fitting strategies, as well as 3) development and assessment of methods for measurement of the aided performance. The on‐going work includes a proposal for a differentiated fitting based on extended auditory profiles, and is accompanied by both in‐ and out‐of‐clinic options for testing and/or reporting on the aided performance experience. Future results will include an experimental validation of the proposed differentiated fitting, as well as a separate effort to investigate common denominators for patients with poor compensation benefits, and options for out‐of‐clinic application of the proposed methods. The paradigm for auditory profiling will be presented along with tentative results simulated hearing aid. The presentation will also include key results from the analysis of the clinical database will be presented, as well as exemplar results from a field study of the aided performance.

Acknowledgement: Collaboration and support by Innovation Fund Denmark Grand Solutions 5164‐00011B, Oticon, GN Resound, Widex and other partners (University of Southern Denmark, Aalborg University, the Technical University of Denmark, Force, and Aalborg, Odense and Copenhagen University Hospitals) is sincerely acknowledged.