Effect of age, test frequency and level on thresholds for the TEN(HL) test for people with normal hearing

Abstract

Objective

The objective was to assess the effect of age on thresholds for the TEN(HL) test for diagnosing dead regions in the cochlea, as a function of signal frequency and TEN(HL) level.

Design

The TEN(HL) test was administered twice for each ear of each participant (in two separate sessions) using signal frequencies from 0.5 to 4 kHz and TEN(HL) levels of 30, 50 and 70 dB HL/ERB_N.

Study sample

19 young participants (mean age 24 years) and 17 older participants (mean age 65 years). All had near-normal audiograms with no history of hearing problems.

Results

There was no systematic change from session 1 to session 2 and repeatability was good. There was no significant effect of ear or gender. The average signal-to-TEN(HL) ratio at threshold was greater for the older than for the young group, especially for the highest level at high frequencies. An equation is presented that can be used to predict the “normal” threshold as a function of age, TEN(HL) level and signal frequency.

Conclusions

Thresholds for the TEN(HL) test were greater for the older group and increased at high frequencies and high TEN levels. The results can be used to give a more accurate diagnosis of dead regions.

Keywords:

• Cochlear dead regions
• threshold equalising noise test
• age
• test repeatability
• normative data

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Patrick Stedjan and Stine Aunli for assistance with data collection. The authors also thank the Associate Editor and two reviewers for helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper.

Declaration of interest

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).