COACH

Status

Recruiting patients

Contact

coach@nottingham.ac.uk

Lead Investigator

Professor Douglas Hartley

Professor of Otology & Consultant ENT Surgeon

University of Nottingham

What is the study about?

In the UK, cochlear implants are provided to some people with severe or profound hearing loss who do not get enough benefit from their hearing aids. Cochlear implants can improve their ability to recognise sounds and understand speech. Currently, only these adults are offered a cochlear implant on the NHS.

This study aims to find out whether some adults who are not currently offered a cochlear implant on the NHS would benefit more from a cochlear implant than they would from using hearing aids alone. These people are those whose hearing or speech test results are just outside of the range that would make them eligible for a cochlear implant on the NHS. It is not known if cochlear implantation is a good treatment option compared to hearing aids for these people.

Who can take part in the study?

Patients aged 18 years and over with severe hearing loss.

What is being tested in the study?

Unilateral cochlear implantation and offer of a new acoustic hearing aid or optimisation of current hearing aid in the contralateral ear.

What is this being compared to?

Offer of new bilateral acoustic hearing aids or optimisation of current hearing aids.

What are we trying to find out?

To evaluate the effect of cochlear implantation on speech understanding in quiet in comparison to the use of acoustic hearing aids (HAs) in adults with severe hearing loss whose audiometric thresholds and/or speech perception scores fall outside current UK candidacy criteria for cochlear implantation (as per NICE guidance TA566).