In-the-ear and behind-the-ear hearing aids in the elderly.

A significant proportion of new hearing aid fittings are rejected by elderly patients. One of the reasons for this is their inability to correctly fit the earmould and hearing aid correctly. In this study we compared the ease of fitting of a behind-the-ear hearing aid with a specially modified skeleton earmould with an in-the-ear (ITE) hearing aid, in an elderly subject group. The modified skeleton earmould was found to be easiest to use. However, the ITE hearing aid presented handling problems only in subjects over 75 years of age. Further analysis of the results revealed that the majority of handling problems are found in female subjects in the over-75 age group.