Previously submitted to: JMIR mHealth and uHealth (no longer under consideration since Apr 21, 2023)
Date Submitted: Nov 28, 2022
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
Clinical efficacy of Apple AirPods Pro as a earing assistive device in patients with mild to moderate hearing loss
ABSTRACT
Background:
Hearing aids (HAs) are regarded as the gold standard for hearing loss (HL) management, however, the adoption rate of HAs is relatively low for various reason. Recently, several smart device manufacturers have been facilitating a drive to increase accessibility, so that users can leverage their products for their healthcare.
Objective:
The aim of the study was to evaluate the clinical efficacy of Apple AirPods Pro with the Headphone Accommodation feature as a hearing assistive device in patients with mild to moderate HL.
Methods:
Fifteen participants (seven men and eight women) with mild to moderate HL recruited. Pure-tone audiometry (PTA) were used for screening HL. AirPods Pro paired with iPhone running iOS 15.6 was used for the study. Three hearing tests were administered both in the aided and unaided conditions in the free sound-field: 1) functional gain; 2) word recognition score (WRS); and 3) sentence recognition in noise. The Wilcoxon signed-rank test was used to compare between the aided and unaided conditions outcomes.
Results:
For the functional gain, there were significant differences between the aided and unaided conditions at frequencies of 250 Hz (P = .013), 500 Hz (P = .001), 1000 Hz (P = .001), 2000 Hz (P = .001), and 6000 Hz (P = .022). The WRS showed a significant difference between the aided and unaided conditions (P = .001). The sentence recognition in noise demonstrated a significant difference between the aided and unaided conditions (p = .003)
Conclusions:
: AirPods Pro with Headphone Accommodation feature have the potential to help patients with HL improve their hearing and speech recognition even under noisy conditions. However, as the gain of the overall frequency is not sufficient, it might be more suitable for patients with mild to moderate HL.
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