Rehabilitation of Hearing Function With Active Devices Bonebridge and Vibrant Soundbridge

The Bonebridge hearing aid (Med-EL, Innsbruck, Austria) is a semi-implantable hearing system with transcutaneous bone conduction that was implemented in Europe in 2012. It is indicated for patients with conductive and mixed hearing loss or unilateral profound sensorineural hearing loss, who do not obtain adequate benefits with conventional hearing aids and are not candidates for middle ear reconstructive surgery. The Bonebridge device, being an active transcutaneous bone conduction implant, can overcome the disadvantages of percutaneous bone conduction devices. The Vibrant Soundbridge hearing aid (Med-EL, Innsbruck, Austria) was implemented in Europe in 1996 as an implantable hearing device in the middle ear in patients with mild to severe sensorineural, conductive or mixed hearing loss with medical and audiological contraindications for the use of conventional hearing aids or with rapidly progressive sensorineural hearing loss. The Bonebridge and Vibrant Soundbridge devices, used in patients with the same indication criteria, had similar audiological results – adequate hearing rehabilitation with improvement of subjective hearing (perception of silent and noisy speech, spatial hearing, hearing quality, sound localization), a significant increase in perceived quality of life and patients’ satisfaction with the hearing aid (comfort, sound quality, cosmetic appearance). Because the Vibrant Soundbridge device requires the floating mass transducer to be coupled to the ossicles, round window, or oval window, this surgery carries a higher risk of inner ear injury than surgery with the Bonebridge device. The advantages of the Vibrant Soundbridge system, compared to the Bonebridge device, are the potential for greater stimulation power, especially at high frequencies, unilaterally stimulating the affected ear without influencing the contralateral ear through bone conduction.