AudiologyNOW is the annual convention of the American Academy of Audiology and perhaps the world’s largest gathering of audiologists. More than 4,300 attendees descended on the Mile High City of Denver, Colo., in April of this year.
The showcase of exhibits ranged from new diagnostic equipment to hearing aids with artificial intelligence. Digital hearing aids celebrated their 10th anniversary on the market with new applications, including datalogging, data learning and binaural processing. Sound complicated? It’s true, hearing aids are getting smarter and that’s nothing but good news for the consumer.
Datalogging and Data Learning
One of the biggest challenges in fitting and fine-tuning hearing aids is the limited insight into the wearer’s listening environment. Does the wearer go home to a quiet house and spend extended time there or head to a business meeting, social gathering or other noisy place? It is often difficult for hearing aid users to describe their listening experiences with their new hearing aids but this is just what is needed in order for audiologists to be able to adjust the aids to better suit the wearer.
Datalogging is a digital signal processing technique in which information about specific sounds in the listening environment is automatically recorded or logged. Datalogging provides audiologists a window into hearing aid users’ world, via digitized information, and insight to the types of listening environments they may be attempting to describe. With this information, audiologists can fine-tune hearing aid programming. This feature marks the beginning of a paradigm shift from “tweaking” the hearing instrument at follow-up visits to proactive planning and management of hearing aid use and it is expected to positively impact customer satisfaction with hearing aids.
Data learning goes one step further by including an algorithm that allows the hearing aid to search large volumes of collected data for patterns, using processes such as classification or clustering. The hearing aid then responds with a solution to listening problems based on this specific information about the user’s listening environment that has been collected over time.
Devices with data learning remember the wearer’s volume preferences in listening situations and various programs. Like the magical remote control in the comedy film “Click,” over time the hearing device “learns” what adjustments the wearer prefers for each listening situation. After this learning period, the device is able to make adjustments on its own and the wearer no longer has to manually change settings in certain familiar listening environments.
Binaural Processing
Developments in technology for binaural (both ears) wireless applications have exploded over the past few years. If you wear two hearing aids, this technology enables your hearing aids to communicate then synchronize to provide you with better hearing more quickly and more easily.
Siemens e2e (ear-to-ear) wireless™ technology enables changes made to the volume or program on one instrument to be made simultaneously to the other instrument. The directional microphone systems act in unison. The wearer also has the option to use the ePocket™ remote control to discreetly control the volume and program of both aids, as well as display instrument settings. All ACURIS™ and select ARTIS™ hearing instruments are equipped with e2e technology.
Oticon is defining a new period in the history of digital hearing aids with Epoq™, scheduled for release in June 2007. It is the first instrument to combine the concept of binaural processing via high-speed wireless connectivity in the same instrument with Bluetooth compatibility. Epoq hearing aids fitted on both ears work as one central auditory processing unit with speeds more than 100 times faster than similar systems. In addition, the Epoq employs EarStream™ technology to provide a binaural signal (to both ears) from equipped Bluetooth devices, such as mobile phones, computers and high-quality MP3 players. The sound from these devices goes directly into both hearing aids, resulting in a powerful stereo effect, without wires. Epoq delivers the best of binaural and Bluetooth worlds.
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