[New aspects of hearing aid fitting].

Improved methods to diagnose a hearing loss and the enormous progress in the development of digital and programmable hearing aids have been helpful in promoting the social integration of patients, even of those affected by a profound deafness. Besides the hearing loss, recruitment effects and alteration of sound can also be compensated by the new hearing aids. However, one precondition is that the hearing aid fitting is carried out professionally, with plenty of time, and including the new hearing aid fitting methods. The new techniques developed in our hospital to optimize hearing aid fitting are pointed out. Fitting should start by considering what kind of ear mould and what kind of different modifications are to be taken. In a great number of patients we were able to verify that venting combined with the insertion of a Bakke- or Libby-horn increases not only the subjective acceptance of the hearing aid, but also significantly improves speech discrimination, particularly under background noise. The preselection of the hearing device and precise adjustment are based on the hearing loss in different frequencies, involving the principle that the frequency response of the hearing aid and the audiogram mirror each other accordingly, whereas the gain of the hearing aid can not be recognised exactly from the audiogram. In contrast to the POGO- and the NAL-method, we recommend a greater amplification, especially in the higher range of frequency. Today, the in-situ-measurement with a probe microphone is considered to be the method of choice for accurate frequency adjustment.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)