Effectiveness of Hearing-aid Based Wind-noise Algorithm

Completed

Conditions studied: Hearing Impairment

In brief

Wind-noise is highly disturbing to hearing impaired individuals wearing hearing aids who wish to participate in outdoor conversations where wind is present or during activities such as walking or running. In these situations, wind noise significantly reduces signal-to-noise ratio and, consequently, the intelligibility of speech and sounds may be significantly impaired. This negative effect is exacerbated with the use of directional microphone schemes in the hearing iads. The objective of this project is to determine the efficacy of the MH Acoustics' multi-microphone wind-noise reduction invention for the digital hearing aids market. MH Acoustics' wind noise reduction technology is unique since it provides instantaneous convergence while maintaining directionality of the microphone array. Current commercial technologies do not provide this feature. We are hypothesizing that, due to the design of the algorithm, speech perception ability and sound quality perception will be better than that available with traditional directional and/or omnidirectional microphone schemes in windy environments.

Key facts

Study ID

NCT00738244

Run by

University of Iowa

People needed

60

Starts

2007-11-01

Expected to finish

2009-11-01

Last updated by the study team

2011-09-26

Who can join

Age: 18 and older, up to 75. Sex: any. Healthy volunteers: accepted.

You may qualify if…

• Ages 18-75
• Normal or mild-to-moderate sensorineural hearing loss

You may not qualify if…

• Thresholds in excess of 75 dB HL

Where it is running

• Wendell Johnson Center, University of Iowa — Iowa City, Iowa, United States

Full record on ClinicalTrials.gov

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