Population study of the ability to benefit fromamplification and the provision of a hearing aid in 55-74-year-oldfirst-time hearing aid users.

About 40% of 55-74-year-olds have an impairment in atleast one ear of 25+ dB HL, and 27% have bilateral impairment at thislevel, with 11% being impaired bilaterally at 35+ dB HL. Only 6%currently use a hearing aid. The performance of a random sample ofparticipants aged 55-74 years on speech-in-noise tasks shows thatsignificant statistical benefit was obtained from bilateralamplification in over 20% of the population who do not currently use ahearing aid. The offer of a hearing aid to all those who exceeded a 25dB HL criterion in the worse car was accepted and taken up by 40%,with 16% declining and the remainder being excluded for pathologicaland logistic reasons (e.g. hearing loss profile not suitable for aid).This is a very high rate of 71% acceptance. One in four fitted withthe hearing aid showed a statistical advantage for hearing speech innoise in freefield (noise and speech from in front) with the hearingaid. Thus at least 10% of the population who do not currently use anaid would benefit substantially from a hearing aid in a quietspeech-in-noise environment. Those with poorer cognitive function showgreater benefit overall and less disadvantage in very badsignal-to-noise environments. The overall pattern of results supportscreening and providing hearing aids to those who do not currentlyhave an aid(s), and suggests that there would be considerablepopulation benefit. At least two main questions for further researchremain: (1) would bilateral aiding strategies give greater benefit;and (2) would different hearing aids and fitting strategies be moreappropriate for people with differing 'cognitive task' loadings onphonological memory and lexical decision factors?