Clinical trials

Tinnitus, the perception of sound without an external source, affects around 15% of the global adult population (Jarach et al., 2022). For many, tinnitus is a mild annoyance, but a significant subset experiences severe distress, leading to reduced quality of life and increased healthcare burden. Hearing loss is a major risk factor for tinnitus (Biswas et al., 2023), and clinical guidelines recommend hearing aids as a therapeutic option (Langguth et al., 2023). In addition to amplification through hearing aids, sound therapy has long been used to help manage tinnitus (Sereda \& Hoare, 2024). A recent randomized controlled trial has demonstrated the clinical efficacy of Sonova hearing aids with integrated noise generator (further referred to as "Tinnitus-feature") in reducing tinnitus-related distress. However, the evidence is limited for newer generations of hearing aids and for individuals with severe to profound hearing loss. This study aims to address these gaps by evaluating the clinical benefit of the noise generator feature in newer generations of Sonova hearing aids for adults with tinnitus and hearing loss and in patients with severe to profound hearing loss during routine clinical practice.

The goal of this clinical study is to investigate the benefits of hearing instrument use in adults with hearing loss. The main questions it aims to answer are: Does hearing instrument use improve speech understanding and listening effort amount people with hearing loss? Researchers will compare varying models of hearing instruments to see how speech understanding and listening effort are impacted. Participants will be asked to wearing varying hearing instruments and participate in lab-based activities to evaluate their speech understanding, listening effort, and subjective preference.

This study will assess the benefit of extended wear hearing aids for subjective listening effort, compared to the unaided condition, in adults with mild sensorineural hearing loss.

The goal of this clinical trial is to learn how hearing instruments perform in varying environmental settings in adults with hearing loss. The main questions it aims to answer are: How do varying versions of hearing instrument features perform based on exposure to different environments? What is the hearing instrument user preference between varying versions of hearing instrument features? Participants will be fit with hearing instruments in the lab, and asked to wear them for the duration of the study period in their home environment. Participants will be asked to answer questionnaires throughout the study period.