Dynamic Assessment of Hearing Aids

描述(由申请人提供)：此第一阶段提案的目标是改进和现场测试一种名为动态助听器评估(DAHA)的计算机化判断方法。该方法使用直观的图形计算机界面来记录患者对他/她的助听器的各种特征的满意度的视觉模拟评级。临床医生可以立即、毫不费力地获得每个评估的结果。每个患者都可以很容易地获得当前和历史结果，以及标准数据。该计划将提供英语和西班牙语两种版本。目前，问卷调查是最常用的方法，但这些方法的缺点包括对患者和管理和评分的人来说都很费力，结果延迟提供，检索困难，难以与同一患者的早期评估进行比较，和/或标准数据。这一新方法已经在典型的临床环境中对39名患者进行了成功的初步测试，但该方法的心理测量学特征，如有效性和可靠性，尚未确定。拟议的商业应用：在美国执业的听力专家人数约为7000人(来源：美国听力学会)，美国听力损失足以影响日常生活的人数超过2500万人。拟议项目的成功完成将满足现有的需求，为助听器的设计者和制造商提供可用于临床实践、临床研究以及研发和营销的各种领域的助听器感知质量的计算机评估。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The goal of this Phase I proposal is to refine and field test a computerized judgment method called Dynamic Assessment of Hearing Aids (DAHA). This method uses an intuitive graphical computer interface to record visual analogue ratings of a patient's satisfaction with various features of his/her hearing aid. The results of each assessment are immediately and effortlessly available to the clinician. Both current and historical results, as well as normative data are easily available for each patient. The program will be available both in English and Spanish. At present, questionnaires are most commonly used, but drawbacks of these methods include laboriousness for both the patient and the person who administers and scores the scale, delayed availability of the results, difficulties in retrieval and comparison with earlier assessments for the same patient, and/or normative data. A successful pilot test of this new method has been conducted with 39 patients in a typical clinical setting, but the psychometric characteristics of the method, such as validity and reliability, have yet to be established. PROPOSED COMMERCIAL APPLICATION: The number of audiologists practicing in the US is approximately 7000 (source: American Academy of Audiology), and the number of people in the U.S. with hearing loss sufficient to affect daily living exceeds 25 million. Successful completion of the proposed project will fulfill the existing demand by providing computer assessment of perceived quality of hearing aids that can be used in a variety of areas of clinical practice, clinical research, as well as R&D and marketing for designers and manufacturers of hearing aid devices.