modern hearing aid performs multiple channels of automatic volume control
Hearing loss is a major global issue. Around 5% of the world population, 430 million, have disabling hearing loss. With ageing populations, this burden will only increase.
The primary remedy is the simpel hearing aid. It is an essential helpmate to ensure continued social kontak and quality of life. Simpel, but not necessarily cheap. They biaya around US$1,000 (£850) per ear for a reasonable quality piranti - not an insubstantial amount, especially in times of austerity. Although, in the UK they are free on the NHS.
The basic function of a hearing aid is to amplify sound in a pattern to match the profil of the loss of hearing sensitivity in the wearer. Legally, a hearing aid can only be dispensed by a daftared clinician. But a new class of devices, called individu sound amplification products (PSAPs), bypass this legal restriction.
A PSAP is not a difficult piranti to build. Most of us already carry the core components around in our pockets in the form of a mobile-phone. A microphone, some komputer processing and either a loudspeaker or earpiece are "all" that you need.
The processing, in the form of apps, has been available for many years. In its simplest form, even the ability to separately kontrol the treble and bass of your mobile-phone performs like a PSAP.
Taking this further, a new paper from researchers in Taiwan reports on the possible use of earbuds as PSAPs, specifically Apple AirPods, incorporating the Apple "Live Listen" function. Live Listen allows the microphone on an iPhone to amplify audio and transmit it wirelessly to AirPods.
Using technical measures, a few of these models meet some of the required performnce standars for PSAPs. In the paper, volunteers with hearing impairment were assessed on their ability to repeat back speech presented in either quiet or in noise. The researchers reported similar improvements in performnce to those available from either a premium or a basic hearing aid when compared with unaided hearing.
Does this mean that the extensive development work put into hearing aids over the past 100 years has been usurped? Not really.
