TITLE:
Efficacy of Remote Hearing Aids Programming Using Teleaudiology: A Systematic Review
AUTHORS:
Maryam Hussein Abdullah Ba Mashmous
KEYWORDS:
Telemedicine, Teleaudiology, Hearing Aids and COVID-19 Pandemic
JOURNAL NAME:
E-Health Telecommunication Systems and Networks,
Vol.11 No.1,
March
15,
2022
ABSTRACT: Telemedicine is defined as a system that allows healthcare workers to
deliver their services and consultations to the patients remotely without the
need of their
physical presence within academic institutions, hospitals, and medical clinics
aiming to reduce the personal contact and limiting it to the need only. The
field of telemedicine is growing every day and facilitating more flexible
services for patients around the world especially during COVID-19
pandemic. Methods: This systematic review was conducted according to the
Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews. Database search was made on several databases
including PubMed/Medline, Scopus, Web of Science, Publons, EMBASE, and Google
Scholar using the relevant keywords. Inclusion criteria for articles in our
study included the following original research (primary research articles),
addressing the efficacy of teleaudiology for hearing aids programming and
satisfaction of patients. Results: Seven studies were included in this
systematic review article. Included studies were assessed using Cochrane
handbook guidelines. Conclusions: The results of this work based on the
currently available literature denote that remote programming for the hearing
aids using modern technology is effective and provide comparable results with
the standard face-to-face clinic programming, even for patients with no
previous experience in hearing aids fitting in either of in-person physical
presence programming or remotely over the internet using teleconferencing which
is known as teleaudiology. Most of the results were positive and support the
continuity to develop better facilities to improve the teleaudiology to be an
essential part of hearing aids programming with its different types. Minimal
results provided negative impact from the participating patients, this resulted
because of the non-upgraded infrastructure and facilities of the audiology
clinic or the personal computer of the patient in his home/ workplace
or both sides don’t have enough specifications to smoothly perform this modern
approach.