DOI: 10.36347/sjams.2015.v03i06.056

Pages: 2422-2430

At present, endorsing suitable gains for different frequency bands of digital hearing aids is an uphill task for the audiologists to enhance hearing satisfaction among the hearing impaired subjects. Present work explored the data base appended by the audiologists in deciding the suitable gain values and produced successful gain recommendations for better deployment of the digital hearing aids. 328 subjects (103 females & 225 males) have partaken in the study, in that 218 subjects were identified as suffering with either sensorineural loss or with mixed hearing loss and rest of them had normal hearing. The hearing impaired subjects were fitted with apposite hearing aid by analyzing their hearing loss level in different frequencies, the fitting gain recommendations were prescribed based on the success rate of the previous recommendations. 185 subjects in the 218 subjects were content only with the altered gain values either by the expert system or by the audiologists. The alterations were made based on the factors like Pure Tone Average (PTA) value, minimum threshold of hearing at particular frequency, erroneously identified words etc. PTA value played a critical role in the enhancement of speech intelligibility. The system designed can be effectually utilized because of its high percentage of success rate, in giving hearing satisfaction. To get enhanced satisfaction level, mass screening has to be done at the earliest and apply the recommended gain suggestions by the proposed system.