Cochlear Implant Use and Listening Characteristics Among the Israeli Population

Background: There are many known contributing factors to successful rehabilitation of cochlear implant (CI) users. Among them are duration of deafness, age of implantation, and exposure to auditory stimulation. Over the last years, Data-Logging (DL) became a useful tool in hearing aids and CI that enable clinicians to get information about device use and the auditory environment that the users are exposed to in their daily life. This is mainly used for monitoring and guidance.

Objective: To characterize device usage and acoustic environment of CI users in Israel, and to use this data to predict the pattern of usage with relation to age, gender, religion (Jewish, Arab) and religiosity (orthodox, non- orthodox), years of CI experience, and family background, including oral and signing families.

Method: DL was collected from 321 Cochlear Nucleus 6 users age 2-91 years. Data was analyzed according to the different background factors and number of daily hours of CI use, coil off time, and the acoustic environments collected by the CI (quiet, noise, speech in quiet, speech in noise, music and wind).

Results: Age was a significant predictor for number of hours of device usage, coil off, exposure to quiet, noise, speech in quiet, and music environments. Family background (hearing vs deaf) was a significant predictor for number of hours of device use, and speech in quiet. Religiosity was a significant predictor for coil off and exposure to noisy environment. Arabs tend to be exposed more to quiet environment in comparison to Jewish users.

Conclusions: DL is a new tool in CIs which enables clinicians to better monitor and guide patients and families compared to general expectations found in this and in other studies and in relation to personal findings in individual cases.