Unusual Hearing Aids
You probably already know about behind the ear hearing aids, in the ear
hearing aids, etc. If you're exceptionally knowledgeable, you may even know
about conduction aids, CROS aids, and implantable aids. But I bet you'll see
some things here that you don't know about!
May
2000 - And if that isn't enough, have you ever thought about getting Hearing Glasses??
July 2004 - The previous article talked about enabling your hearing aids to
be bluetooth compatible. This article talks about
using bluetooth to build a much cheaper and more powerful hearing aid!
Feb 2006 -
Angel Ears Disguised Hearing Aid for Women
April
2006 - Varibel,
the glasses that hear
April
2006 - Solar
Powered Hearing Aids for Unreached People
April
2007 - Israel's
Audiodent invents hearing aid for the mouth
May
2007 - Wirear - a HiTech and Stylish Hearing Aid
Dec
2007 -
Vintage Ear Trumpets
Apr 2008
-
Lyric hearing aid costs up to $3600 per year!
May 2008 -
InSound's new hearing aid hidden inside ear
May 2008 -
Solar-powered hearing aids help poor deaf folk
May 2008 -
Audiologists can now fit the InSound Lyric Hearing Aid
September 2008 - Lyric Hearing Aid Available in
Florida
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
April
2006
Today
a new hearing aid in the form of a pair of glasses was unveiled. These
hearing-glasses are called 'Varibel' and offer older people the chance
to stay active longer - free from the aesthetically unpleasing and
technologically limited traditional hearing aids. Delft University of
Technology in the Netherlands originally developed the hearing-glasses.
Varibel developed these glasses into a consumer product in partnership
with Philips, Frame Holland, the design agencies MMID and Verhoeven, and
others. Full
Story
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
April
2006
[Editor:
You won't believe the price!]
The
world's established hearing aid industry produces hearing aids that are
NOT suitable for most of the world's 250 million hearing impaired
people. These hearing aids
require a continual supply of disposable batteries, which are seldom
available or affordable to poor people.
Beyond batteries, conventional aids are not built for rugged
service. In remote Asian,
African and Latin American villages the lifetime of ordinary hearing
aids is measured in months.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
April
2007
The idea that you can hear sounds from vibrations transmitted through your
teeth is nothing new. Long before composer Beethoven held a wooden baton
between his teeth and pressed it to his piano to listen to the notes,
inventors have been experimenting with a variety of hearing aids devised
from wooden boards held to the teeth. Imaginative though these were, up to
now, there has never been a practical solution. Audiodent, a small Israeli
start-up based in Omer, near Beersheva, is about to change all that. The
company has developed an innovative new hearing aid that clips easily
inside the mouth, using the teeth and jawbone to transmit sound to the
brain. Full
Story
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
May 2007
Ruined your hearing with too much loud music? Take a
peek into the future with Wirear, a fashion-conscious hearing-aid concept
by Australian student designer Sun Kyung Sunwoo. She noticed a number of
problems with current hearing aids, and attempts to overcome those faults
while designing a hearing aid that looks more like a piece of jewelry than
a techno-device. First,
she's improved the sound quality by locating the microphone in front of
the ear, using the sound-gathering shape of the folds of the ear to
achieve the most natural sound fidelity. The speaker is placed within the
ear canal, also improving the sound while reducing echo. As a result, this
design has the benefits of both in-the-ear and behind-the-ear hearing aid
designs, as well as reduced feedback Full
Story
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
December 2007
People have always lost their hearing
with age, but before there were hearing aids and cochlear implants, there
were ear trumpets. And ear trumpet is pretty much exactly what it sounds
like (a cone whose small end fits in the ear canal) and serves to better
collect and amplify sound into the ear. A person hard of hearing would hold
it to their ear as someone else would speak (or yell) into the large end of
the trumpet. The earliest description of an ear trumpet was in the early
1600s.
Full Story
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
April 2008
But now scientists have come up with a different
kind of hearing aid. While the device, called the Lyric, is being used in
only 500 patients, it appears to have overcome many of the problems
associated with traditional hearing aids - without the expense and
uncertainty of surgery and anesthesia. The Lyric, made by InSound Medical of
Newark, Calif., is hidden deep inside the ear canal, just four millimeters
(about one-sixth of an inch) from the ear drum. While doctors for years have
been implanting hearing devices in the middle ear, the Lyric is not an
implant: it can be removed with a small magnet. It is worn 24 hours a day,
and its batteries last one to four months.
Full Story
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
May 2008
Barbara Rosenberg is an early adopter when it comes
to hearing aids - her vanity, she says, keeps her on the cutting edge. When
she first needed help hearing about 10 years ago, the San Francisco resident
opted for the latest, most discreet technology, a device that nested in the
ear canal. Now, she's moved on to the newest advancement: the first
extended-wear hearing aid, virtually invisible to others, which can be worn
24 hours a day up to four months. "They're not custom-made, but they can be
adjusted to the shape of your ear," Rosenberg said of the 15-millimeter
hearing aid developed by InSound Medical Inc. of Newark. "I was fitted with
them and have been ecstatic with them ever since." The nonsurgical device -
called Lyric - is placed just 4 millimeters from the eardrum, hiding it from
view. It's designed to resolve common problems associated with conventional
aids, including feedback and difficulty hearing certain frequency ranges.
Full Story
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
May 2008
It's a long way from Montreal to Otse, a speck of a
town in the backcountry of Botswana. But Howard Weinstein, 57, is glad he
made the journey. When he first arrived in this parched community of 3,500
at the edge of the Kalahari desert five years ago, the retired Canadian
business executive knew it would be no holiday. All the same, Weinstein just
took a deep breath; all he wanted was a place where he could put his life
back together. The civic group World University Service of Canada had sent
him to Otse. His mission was to set up a company that would provide
affordable hearing aids to partially deaf Africans. Just one problem: in
African terms there was no such thing as an affordable hearing aid. The
people in Otse didn't seem able to afford much of anything at all. "My
office was a single room with a couple chairs and no staff," Weinstein
recalls. "We were starting from zero." It was exactly what he was looking
for. Full
Story
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
May 2008
The InSound Medical Lyric deep-fitting disposable
hearing aid has received from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) an
extension of its indication for use statement so that appropriately trained
audiologists and dispensing professionals, in addition to ENT physicians,
can place the new hearing device in a patient's ear canal. Previously, only
ENTs were allowed to place the device in the ear canal. Although the new
indication opens the door to audiologists' and dispensing professionals'
placement of the device without medical supervision, InSound Medical's VP of
Marketing Susan Whichard notes that the company's strategy is to work first
with those audiologists and dispensing professionals who maintain close
professional relationships with ENTs. She says that the company intends to
transition changes in the placement of the device in appropriate stages.
For example, a dispensing professional might decide to work with an ENT when
performing new Lyric fittings, then progress to doing the majority of the
replacement fittings and/or new fittings him/herself.
Full Story
