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Objectives/Hypothesis: To determine the timing of acoustic hearing changes among hearing preservation Cochlear implant (CI) recipients. To determine differences in hearing outcomes based on device type and demographic factors. To determine if there is a relationship between the extent of early hearing loss after CI and the subsequent rate of continued hearing loss. Study Design: Prospective, single subject study. Methods: Two hundred and eleven subjects who received a hearing preservation CI were included in the study—80 Nucleus Hybrid L24 (Cochlear), 47 422/522 (Cochlear), 24 S8 (Cochlear), 14 S12 (Cochlear), 6 SRW (Cochlear), 21 SLIM J (Advanced Bionics), and 19 Flex (Med‐EL). Of these, 127 were included in the subsequent analyses. Audiometric thresholds (low frequency pure‐tone‐averages) were collected and compared pre and postoperatively. Results: Long‐term hearing preservation rates were 65% (52/80) for L24, 83% (20/24) for S8, 79% (11/14) for S12, 83% (5/6) for SRW, 54% (25/47) for 422/522, 91% (21/23) for SLIM J, and 84% (16/19) for Flex. Hearing loss was not related to device type (P =.9105) or gender (P =.2169). Older subjects (age ≥65) had worse hearing outcomes than younger subjects after initial device activation (age <65, P =.0262). There was no significant difference in rate of hearing loss over time between older and younger patients (P =.0938). Initial postoperative hearing loss was not associated with the rate of long‐term hearing loss. Conclusions: Long‐term low frequency hearing preservation is possible for CI recipients and is not associated with gender or device type. Rate of hearing loss over time is not dependent on patient age. Early hearing loss after CI does not predict the rate of long‐term hearing loss. Level of Evidence: 3 Laryngoscope, 132:2036–2043, 2022 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Hearing aid technology can allow users to "geo-tag" hearing aid preferences using the Global Positioning System (GPS). This technology assumes that listening environment characteristics that affect hearing aid benefit change little in a location over time. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether certain characteristics (reverberation, signal type, listening activity, noise location, noisiness, talker familiarity, talker location, and visual cues) changed in a location over time. Design: Participants completed GPS-tagged surveys on smartphones to report on characteristics of their listening environments. Coordinates were used to create indices that described how much listening environment characteristics changed in a location over time. Indices computed in one location were compared to indices computed across all locations for each participant. Study sample: 54 adults with hearing loss participated in this study (26 males and 38 females; 30 experienced hearing aid users and 24 new users). Results: A location dependency was observed for all characteristics. Characteristics were significantly different from one another in their stability over time. Conclusions: Listening environment characteristics changed less over time in a given location than in participants' lives generally. The effectiveness of GPS-dependent hearing aid settings likely depends on the accuracy and location definition of the GPS feature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]