Friday, 24 February 2017

Acceptable Noise Level measured using Monitored Live Voice: A Pilot Study

Background noise is a significant contributor to poor speech understanding for listeners with normal hearing. It creates an even greater challenge for listeners with hearing loss. Those with hearing loss who use hearing aids often complain of background noise. Specifically, background noise is the main complaint among hearing aid users when trying to follow a conversation. Half of the conversations occur in environments with some background present. 

hearing journal impact factor
The acceptable noise level (ANL) is a measure that attempts to quantify listener preference of background noise when listening to speech. Its use can contribute to clinicians and those with hearing loss by predictively differentiating full time hearing aid wearers from part time wearers or those who reject hearing aids. Thus, the ANL can be a valuable tool for the fitting of and counseling related to hearing aids. However, the ANL is not widely utilized by clinicians in the field. One of the possible reasons for this may be a factor of convenience in performing the ANL measurement with an audiometer alone, as a test easier for clinicians to administer may be more acceptable.