LM310 - The Do's and Dont's of Hearing Aid Verification: Clinical Tips and Updates for 2023

Abstract:
Hearing aid verification equipment offers a wide range of functions, but which ones are the best procedures to use with today's hearing aids? Which procedures allow us to best personalize the hearing aid fitting to the patient's unique hearing needs? In this hour we will discuss ten techniques in hearing aid verification, examining how they work, the evidence on why they were developed, and case examples of application of each. Audience members will be engaged to interpret results, consider pros and cons, and consider implementation factors in hearing aid verification best practices.

Summary:
Recent guidelines recommend hearing aid verification for both adults (AAA, 2006; APSO, 2020) and children (AAA, 2013). These procedures emphasize the importance of ensuring audibility from hearing aids, and some speak to the importance of using verification to better understand the impact of specific signal processing in hearing aids. However, because hearing aid signal processing and features are constantly evolving, the procedures we use to evaluate these features also evolve and change, which presents an issue of practice change and the need for new knowledge to understand why changes may be warranted. New tests and new measures, along with new standards, mean that updating our procedures is a continuing and important component of maintaining protocols that incorporate hearing aid verification into clinical practice. This includes measures for basic fitting, advanced features, troubleshooting, and for use with niche technologies. This session will review key areas of practice change, technology evolution, and protocols that align, selecting 10 key areas to consider for practice updates. Examples of these key areas include basic and advanced techniques for verifying open hearing aids in both the ear and coupler, fitting and verification of bone conduction hearing aids, and strategies for verification of signal processing features such as noise reduction and frequency lowering. Concrete takeaways will include description of specific protocols, and illustrative cases that demonstrate how to apply each takeaway. In lieu of hands-on training, illustrative videos, screen captures, and comparative examples will be used to share these techniques in a variety of clinical equipment types to ensure relevance to a wide range of attendees. Background evidence will be shared to link each of the 10 key areas to the scientific basis that supports each one as an evidence-based practice, illustrating the scientific and clinical impact offered by each area.