Auditory contact lenses
Excessive noise, ear diseases, vasoconstriction, old age – hearing impairment can be caused by many factors. To improve the quality of life of people with hearing loss, employees of the University of Tubingen and the Fraunhofer Institute of Industrial Engineering and Automation (Fraunhofer IPA) have developed an innovative hearing aid with a built-in speaker, which is manufactured individually and installed directly on the eardrum, as part of the Vibrosonic startup. This hearing contact lens is not an implant, and the sound quality it provides is superior to other hearing systems currently on the market.
The internal module of the hearing aid.
According to the German Association of the Hearing Impaired (Deutscher Schwerhörigenbund e.V), about 15 million Germans suffer from hearing loss. In many cases, hearing aids can improve hearing and improve the quality of life of patients and their loved ones.
In most standard hearing aids, the speaker is installed in the ear canal, which leads to acoustic distortion that can degrade the sound quality. The microphone is usually located behind the ear, so it perceives noise interference, for example, wind. Thanks to its innovative solution, Vibrosonic was able to eliminate these problems.
The hearing contact lens is the heart of Vibrosonic alpha technology.
The Vibrosonic alpha device consists of three components: two internal modules (an auditory contact lens and an auditory canal module) and an external module with a processor and battery. The internal components are securely fixed inside the ear; the external module is worn behind the ear and can be removed. An auditory contact lens is a speaker that is installed directly on the eardrum, which transmits vibrations to the auditory bones. This structure of the device helps to transmit sound without any extraneous noise through direct mechanical action on the structures of the inner ear.
Thanks to the innovative internal module, Vibrosonic alpha amplifies sound in the frequency range from 80 Hz to 12 kHz. Conventional systems are not capable of this. Low tones are important when listening to music because they make the sound richer; the ability to hear high tones correctly is important for understanding speech, as a variety of overtones form the character of the voice.
Due to anatomical differences in the structure of each person's eardrum, auditory contact lenses are made individually for each patient.
With severe hearing impairment or attempts at miniaturization, conventional hearing aids reach their limits due to noise interference - the result of the limited performance of coil speakers that have been used so far. The Vibrosonic alpha device with an auditory contact lens contains a speaker that was developed and manufactured based on microsystem engineering methods. The individual structures inside the speaker are a thousand times thinner than a human hair. Despite its miniature size, it provides extremely high-quality sound transmission.
Initial studies with a small number of participants have shown that the Vibrosonic alpha hearing aid can improve hearing in people with mild to moderate impairments. The system is suitable for patients over the age of 18 and can be worn on one or both ears, depending on the degree of hearing loss. The researchers plan to reduce the size of the components of the auditory system so that they fit entirely deep inside the auditory canal and are invisible from the outside.
Aminat Adzhieva, portal "Eternal Youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru based on Fraunhofer IPA: A contact lens for the ear.