Acceptable noise level in Danish adult subjects diagnosed with unilateral Ménière's disease

Abstract

Objective: The acceptable noise level (ANL) test is used for quantification of the amount of background noise that subjects are willing to accept when listening to speech. Earlier studies including subjects with normal hearing and/or mixed types of sensorineural hearing losses have shown that ANL is not affected by hearing sensitivity. The purpose of this study was to investigate possible within-subject ANL differences between ears in subjects with unilateral Ménière's disease. Study design: ANL was measured in three conditions in both ears of 11 Danish adult subjects diagnosed with unilateral Ménière's disease. Both speech and noise signals were presented through earphones. The Wilcoxon signed rank test was utilized to determine if there were significant differences between ANLs measured in the unaffected and the ears affected by Ménière's disease. Spearman's rank correlation coefficient was calculated to determine if an association exists between the speech discrimination score and ANL in the affected ear. Results: Similar mean ANL results were found in the subjects’ unaffected and affected ear. No association between speech discrimination and the ANL on the affected ear was found. Conclusion: The present study showed no within-subject ANL differences owing to differences in hearing sensitivity or loudness growth patterns.

Key words::

• acceptable noise level
• international speech test signal (ISTS)
• recruitment
• unilateral

Acknowledgements

Data from this study were presented at the British Academy of Audiology Annual Conference, 12−13 November 2012, Manchester, UK. The authors thank engineer Arne Månsson at Rigshospitalet in Copenhagen for valuable discussions and advice regarding equipment calibration, and Anders H. Rasmussen for integrating the test signals in the audiometric software.

Declaration of interest: No outside funding or grants in support of this research were received. The authors report no conflicts of interests. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.