Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
4. INTERNATIONAL GÖBEKLİTEPE SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH CONGRESS, Şanlıurfa, Türkiye, 7 - 08 Ekim 2022, ss.693-702
Binaural hearing is advantageous monoaural hearing in several ways, such as sound localization, shadow effect of the head, binaural summation (more intense perception of sounds heard through two ears) and squelch effect (increment in speech intelligibility in noise). Some impacts occur in anatomical, physiological, psychosocial,cognitive, etc. functions with aging. It seems that these regressions later in life cause speech perception difficulties in typical complex listening environments. These problems can also be encountered in individuals who are older people with normal hearing according to pure tone audiometry test. For this reason, the effects of binaural hearing on the understanding of speech in silence and noise in elderly individuals were investigated. The Turkish language standardized TurMatrix Test (Turkish Matrix Test) was applied, in which speech perception was evaluated with adaptive/non-adaptive measurements in the presence of noise. In the study right, left and bilateral ears of 43 individuals (32 females, 11 males) aged 60-69 (mean 64.12±2.48 years) with normal hearing were evaluated with the Oldenburg Measurement Applications software in the Otometrics MADSEN Astera2 audiometry. Speech comprehension thresholds of older subjects in noise were measured using an adaptive procedure. In the right ear, -5.16±0.73 dB signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) in men, - 5.12±0.80 dB SNR in women; in the left ear -4.90±0.93dB SNR in men, -4.92±0.69 dB SNR in women; in thebilateral ears were -7.94±0.71 dB SNR in men and -7.92±0.73 dB SNR in women was obtained. There were no significant differences in speech comprehension in noise performance between the right and left ears of subjects (p=0,695). Comprehension performances in binaural condition were obtained significantly better than monaural condition (p=0,000). In the context of our findings, it was concluded that binaural hearing is more advantageous
than monaural in understanding speech in noise in the elderly population.