BEARS
Both EARS clinical trial
What is the BEARS trial?
BEARS (Both Ears) is a clinical trial to find out if using virtual reality games at home helps children and young people with bilateral cochlear implants to hear better. We are hoping to recruit more than 300 children in most of the paediatric CI centres in the UK.
Children and young people aged 8 to 16 years with bilateral implants will be randomised to either use the virtual reality games at home for three months, or continue on their usual care pathway. The games can either be played on an Oculus Quest headset or on an iPad; we provide all equipment for participants to use.
The BEARS trial has now started, with 21 children and young people currently recruited. We are getting a great deal of interest at conferences and public engagement events.
Such an exciting project to be involved in – combining new technology and home-based rehabilitation to see if we can improve children’s hearing in challenging listening situations.
If the BEARS games are proved to help, we would like to roll them out into the NHS care pathway for children and young people with bilateral cochlear implants.
Professor Helen Cullington
University of Southampton Auditory Implant Service
Highfield
Southampton
SO17 1BJ
H.Cullington@Southampton.ac.uk