CROS Hearing Aid Application (For Unilateral Hearing Loss)
I work as an audiologist at a hearing aid center in Samsun. The other day, the mother of a user I was working with mentioned that her child has unilateral hearing loss and needs a CROS hearing aid application. However, they had previously visited other hearing aid centers where CROS hearing aids were either not available or the centers didn’t provide CROS applications. Based on the remarks of the patient’s relative, I have decided to prepare a brief text about CROS hearing aids, which are not widely implemented in Samsun.
CROS hearing aids are specially designed devices for individuals with unilateral hearing loss (also referred to as accessory devices). The term “CROS” stands for “Contralateral Routing of Signal.” The application of CROS hearing aids involves a microphone placed on the ear with hearing loss and a receiver placed on the unaffected ear. The microphone captures incoming sounds and transmits them to the unaffected ear, allowing the user to hear sounds from the affected ear.
The use of CROS hearing aids offers significant benefits to users. This application supports users in their ability to hear from both sides, enhances hearing quality in noisy environments, reduces social isolation resulting from hearing loss, and has a particularly important impact on the academic success of school-aged children.
Let’s move on to the application part :)
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The company I work for in Samsun has a partnership with Signia, a hearing aid brand. Although I have been working with Signia brand since I started, there are CROS hearing aids available that are compatible with the standard hearing aids of every brand.
Signia’s CROS hearing aids are compatible with the brand’s standard in-the-ear, ready-to-wear canal (Silk), and receiver devices. (For patient satisfaction, I recommend choosing Android-compatible Ax series or MFO (Made For iPhone) feature-enabled hearing aids.)
For my patient M.U.Y. (8 years old) that I mentioned earlier, I used an Android-compatible receiver device in the CROS application. The patient had severe hearing loss in the right ear, while the left ear had normal hearing levels at 18 dB.
I placed the CROS accessory device on the right ear, which is the ear with hearing loss, and the standard hearing aid (Signia Pure 1AX) on the normally hearing left ear. (This way, sounds coming from the right side were transmitted to the left side.)
The crucial point in this simple application is the selection of the ear for the cross application and the choice of a hearing aid compatible with the cross device. Companies have already specified the standard devices compatible with cross in their product catalogs. During the application, unless the user has any additional requests, there won’t be a need for extra modifications. This is because the standard hearing aid we put on the left ear provides normal hearing levels. (If the patient had hearing loss in the left ear as well, then the application we would perform would be called BICROS, and different modifications might be required.)
I hope this has been an informative article for our expert colleagues.
