The Impact of Daily Processor Use on Adult Cochlear Implant Outcomes: Reexamining the Roles of Duration of Deafness and Age at Implantation

Objective: To quantify the roles and relationships between age at implantation, duration of deafness (DoD), and daily processor use via data logging on speech recognition outcomes for postlingually deafened adults with cochlear implants. Study Design: Retrospective case review. Setting: Cochlear implant (CI) program at a tertiary medical center. Patients: Six-hundred fourteen postlingually deafened adult ears with CIs (mean age, 63 yr; 44% female) were included. Main Outcome Measure(s): A stepwise multiple regression analysis was completed to investigate the combined effects of age, DoD, and daily processor use on CI-aided speech recognition (Consonant-Nucleus-Consonant monosyllables and AzBio sentences). ResultsResults indicated that only daily processor use was significantly related to Consonant-Nucleus-Consonant word scores (R-2 = 0.194, p < 0.001) and AzBio in quiet scores (R-2 = 0.198, p < 0.001), whereas neither age nor DoD was significantly related. In addition, there was no significant relationship between daily processor use, age at implantation, or DoD and AzBio sentences in noise (R-2 = 0.026, p = 0.005). Conclusions: Considering the clinical factors of age at implantation, DoD, and daily processor use, only daily processor use significantly predicted the similar to 20% of variance in postoperative outcomes (CI-aided speech recognition) accounted for by these clinical factors.