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Tuesday, August 28, 2007 The Invisible Hearing AidIs a fully implantable device worth the risks associated with the required surgery? By Michael Chorost
Hearing aids help millions of people, but many resist them because they think wearing one carries a social stigma. Hearing aids also have serious lifestyle limitations: the hearing impaired can't wear them while showering or swimming, and most models are hard to wear while sleeping. Now, a new kind of hearing aid that aims to overcome these problems is in clinical trials. It's invisible and waterproof because all of its circuitry--including its battery and microphone--is in the user's head. Developed by Otologics, of Boulder, CO, the device picks up sound with a microphone implanted underneath the skin behind the user's ear. The signal is processed by electronics and sent to a tiny vibrating piston implanted against the small bones in the middle ear. The bones transmit the vibrations to the inner ear, which encodes them as nerve impulses and sends the information to the brain. "You can have a more normal life," says Otologics's CEO José Bedoya. "You can be exposed to environments in which hearing aids have difficulty operating properly." He also suggests that implantation creates a psychological bond with the device that is life enhancing. "Individuals implanted with the system have said that it becomes a part of you--there's a greater sense of security." The device is powered by a battery that is recharged when the user places a small radio transmitter against his or her head for 60 to 90 minutes. The transmitter is held to the skin by a magnet in the implant. An inductive coil in the implant converts the radio energy to electricity and recharges the battery with it. The battery can stay inside the body for at least five years, according to the company, before it needs to be replaced. The implanted components are hermetically sealed together to protect against leaks, so the electronics, microphone, and inductive coil are replaced as well. However, the piston in the middle ear remains in place. The results of a phase I clinical trial of the hearing aid were reported in the August 2007 issue of Otolaryngology--Head and Neck Surgery. Twenty subjects with moderate to severe hearing loss were implanted in one ear. (Seventeen of the subjects had worn conventional hearing aids prior to the study.) The subjects did somewhat worse than with the hearing aid they had previously worn: their ability to hear a range of single-frequency tones dropped between 5 and 12 decibels, and mean word-recognition scores dropped from the low 80 percent range to the high 60 percent range. On the other hand, a satisfaction survey found that the subjects felt that the device not only improved their hearing, but also sounded more natural than their old hearing aid. The authors of the study speculated that new processing algorithms would improve the test results. Otologics has indicated that it is already working on this. |
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The Naked Ear
12/18/2007
Comments
Em on 08/28/2007 at 10:56 AM
9
Lemuel on 08/28/2007 at 5:57 PM
1
I don’t see any problem in radiation as long as it is just about magnetic fields.
Although there might be an evanescent small amount of electromagnetic radiation there is absolutely no proof of damage by that.
When you concern that today most people use cell phones more than once a day the effects of the electromagnetic fields produced by the internal aid should be , in comparison to other “every day devices”, irrelevant.
I see a bigger problem in the growing danger of infection. When you use this internal aid and you will have to do a surgery every five years the risk of getting an infection by that is much higher than on “not hearing disabled persons”.
smithsomian on 08/29/2007 at 10:31 AM
18
takingItIn on 08/29/2007 at 11:00 PM
1
unwittinglyimplanted on 09/08/2007 at 10:20 AM
2
Tagamet on 09/14/2007 at 1:14 PM
7
LJGremillion on 10/15/2007 at 3:53 PM
1