THIS WEEK: p21 08 Jun
02
#27 What's that noise?
Hearing aids that you teach about your life will do a far better
job
Rachel Nowak; Melbourne
MANY hearing aids end up gathering dust because users get fed up
with the way they over-amplify traffic noise, muffle
conversation, or turn the chink of dinner plates into resounding
crashes. Now a new device that automatically adjusts to different
environments according to the user's preferences could make
hearing less of a strain.
Audiologists usually set hearing aids to amplify sounds of
different frequencies to different degrees, to help people hear
as wide a range of sounds as possible. But one of the big
problems is that this adjustment is usually done in quiet
clinics, away from the background noises people have to contend
with from day to day.
Now a team at Australia's Cooperative Research Centre for Cochlear
Implant and Hearing Aid Innovation is following a different
approach. After the CRC's hearing aid has been fitted, the wearer
takes over and starts to program it to work in a variety of
environments, ranging from clubs, bars and busy streets to
quieter surroundings such as libraries.
In each environment, the user adjusts the volume, and the treble
and the bass tone to produce the best sound. A press of a button
then stores these settings in memory chips in the hearing aid,
along with a sound profile for that environment. The prototype
has a sound-processing and remote-control unit mounted on the
user's belt, though in the finished product the sound processor
will be built into the aid itself.
The user 'trains' the hearing aid for up to 15 different
environments. After that, in any new environment, it monitors the
ambient sound and uses it in combination with the accumulated
data to calculate the best settings for volume and tone. 'It
predicts what settings you'd like in any environment,' says
Justin Zakis, a member of the CRC team. 'And the more information
the user puts in, the better it operates.'
The team hopes its device, which has been tested on 10 patients so
far, will be for sale within two years. It will join a clutch of
recent innovations in digital hearing aids that are designed to
overcome the problems of background noise, says Jonathan Galt,
director of audiology at the National Hearing Centres in
Melbourne.
These include microphones that automatically change the direction
from which they detect sound to help people who struggle to
follow a conversation at a noisy party for example, when sound
from all directions is sensed equally, confusing hearing.
The CRC hearing aid will be the first device of its kind that can
be customised by the wearer to suit their needs in different
sound environments. Zakis says this will give it a big advantage.
Nobody knows exactly how many people suffer deafness severe enough
to interfere with conversation, but about 6 million hearing aids
are sold worldwide each year. Even people with moderate hearing
loss can become depressed and isolated, and their families can be
affected as well.
'The deaf person sits by the television with it blasting away and
everybody else avoids them,' says Robert Cowan, director of the
CRC. 'A hearing aid that actually works can reduce stress levels
in the family no end.'
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Copyright 2002 New Scientist, Reed Business Information
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