Several guidelines have been developed on the initiative of the European Union of Hearing Aid Acousticians (EUHA), the Union announced. Issues such as hearing protection, audio therapy in hearing aid acoustics, and percentile analysis have been tackled in the respective guidelines. Early this year, the EUHA released practical recommendations on “Wireless remote microphone systems—configuration, verification, and measurement of individual benefit,” that are now also available in English.

In different everyday life situations, the use of wireless remote microphone (WRM) systems can improve speech intelligibility and reduce listening effort. This is why the EUHA expert group developed a new and forward-looking guideline for measuring the individual benefit of a WRM system and configuring the measuring system.

Beate Gromke, chairwoman of the expert group and member of the EUHA executive committee: “The guideline is meant to provide assistance in the acoustician’s daily routine. Our aim was to develop a useful guide that serves all issues of FM/Bluetooth. It should be applicable not only to those who wear hearing systems but also to CI users and children suffering from CAPD. Moreover, the guideline is useful for demonstrating the benefit derived in each case.”

WRM systems are mentioned in the German directive for the benefit catalogue of the statutory health insurance funds, which makes them prescribable, according to EUHA. It has been said that whether a health insurance company is willing to reimburse the costs incurred, however, depends on the plausibility of the electroacoustic evaluation of subjective benefit. The measuring data obtained by adhering to the guideline are objective parameters that can be provided to German health insurance companies. At the same time, says EUHA, these are important data for hearing aid users and their relatives to confirm benefit. A test booth and a dual-channel speech audiometer are required for implementing the procedure presented in the guideline.

The guideline is available for download free of charge from:

http://www.euha.org/guidelines/

Source: EUHA