Does Wearing Hearing Aids Impact the Affective State of Older Adults With Hearing Loss in Their Daily Lives?
Condition: Hearing Loss; Hearing Loss, Sensorineural; Emotions; Stress Physiology
MeSH terms: Hearing Loss; Deafness; Hearing Loss, Sensorineural
Study type: Interventional

Summary: 
      The proposed field trial will clarify the real-world effectiveness of HAs in remediating
      deficits in emotion processing for older adults with mild-to-moderate hearing loss. This
      study will employ a repeated reversal design to establish baseline affective state without
      HAs, when wearing amplification, and after HAs are removed. This study will triangulate
      self-report, behavioral, and physiological measures to capture nuances of emotional
      processing in the laboratory and in daily listening. Naturalistic stimuli will be used as it
      occurs in daily life to elicit emotional experiences, and ecological momentary assessment and
      commercially-available wearable sensors will be used to track changes in emotional state in
      daily listening. Anchoring real-world emotional experiences with controlled laboratory
      experiences will validate wearable sensors. Additionally, laboratory emotional stimuli will
      be related to real-world emotional experiences to establish the utility of laboratory stimuli
      in future studies. It is likely that benefits in emotional processing will have differential
      effects based on individual characteristics (such as degree of hearing loss, age, gender,
      cognitive ability, and personality), so participants will be analyzed according to larger
      groupings based on individual differences.
    

Detailed description: 
      Thirty-five participants will complete preliminary measures, including assessments of routine
      audiometrics, demographics, personality, and working memory. For each arm of the trial
      (baseline-unaided; aided; follow-up unaided) participants will be issued sensors to use while
      pursuing normal daily life activities. These sensors can provide information such as heart
      rate (HR) and respiration activity, which have been associated with the arousal dimension of
      emotion. Participants also will download a mobile app that will automatically prompt them
      throughout their day to indicate their perceived arousal and valence and listening-related
      workload. For each arm of the trial interindividual and intraindividual emotion perception,
      speech understanding, and perceived workload will be also be assessed using laboratory-based
      self-report, behavioral, and physiological measures. Subjective measures of hearing aid
      benefit, emotional consequences of hearing loss, and the effect of hearing loss on emotional
      communication will be assessed through validated questionnaires at the conclusion of each arm
      of the trial.
    

Intervention name(s): Bilateral hearing devices
Intervention type(s): Device
Intervention description(s): Three week trial while wearing bilateral hearing devices.
Other intervention name(s): Hearing aid; Hearing aids; Receiver-in-the-canal; RIC
Allocation: Non-Randomized
Intervention model: Crossover Assignment
Intervention model description: ABA Repeated Reversal design
Masking: None (Open Label)
Primary purpose: Treatment