A circular window-excited vibration artificial middle ear actuator with variable initial pressure and stiffness adjustment

Abstract

The invention relates to a circular window-excited artificial middle ear actuator with initial pressure variable stiffness adjustment, which includes a housing, a supporting device and a driving device. The front end of the supporting device is connected with the housing and its rear end is fixed to the On the bone wall opposite to the window membrane, the driving device is located inside the housing and its front end directly acts on the round window membrane; the housing includes a base and a shell, and the front end of the base is fixed to the shell; the supporting device includes a spring piece, a front support block and Displacement adjustment device; the spring piece is fixedly connected to the rear end of the base; the front end of the front support block is fixedly connected to the spring piece and its rear end is assembled with the displacement adjustment device, and the front support block is translated back and forth by adjusting the displacement adjustment device; Coupling rod; the rear end of the expander is against the base, and the rear end of the coupling rod is fixedly connected with the front end of the expander and moves axially along the casing. The invention can adjust the initial pressure of the actuator acting on the round window membrane with variable stiffness.

Description

technical field [0001] The invention relates to the technical field of listening devices, in particular to a round window-excited vibration type artificial middle ear actuator with initial pressure variable stiffness adjustment. Background technique [0002] As a common disease, hearing loss brings great inconvenience to human's daily life. According to the different mechanisms of damage, hearing loss can be divided into conductive hearing loss and sensorineural hearing loss. For conductive hearing loss, most people with this type of hearing can improve their hearing with surgery. However, for sensorineural hearing loss, there is still a lack of targeted treatment options, and traditional hearing aids are generally used to improve hearing. However, traditional hearing aids have problems such as low output gain (unable to compensate for a high degree of hearing loss), ear canal blockage, and troublesome daily maintenance of the device. These problems make many patients relu...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

[0006] However, clinical applications show that the postoperative hearing compensation effect of this round window implanted actuator is unstable, with large individual differences, and the compensation effect is lower than the theoretical estimate

Studies have shown that these clinical problems are mainly caused by the following reasons: First, the commonly used actuators (Floating Mass Transducer, Vibrant Soundbridge, Austria MED-EL Company) have a diameter of 1.8 mm, while the diameter of the round window membrane is 1.2 mm. In the range of ~1.9 mm, this will cause the actuator’s active end to be too large relative to the round window, which cannot effectively couple with the round window membrane, and thus cannot effectively input vibration energy to the cochlea, making its hearing compensation effect lower than the theoretical design value

The second is that the actuator 202 commonly used in clinical practice has no supporting structure. In clinical practice, the fascia 201 is placed behind the actuator 202 to support it. figure 2 shown

This fascial support cannot provide sufficient support stiffness, resulting in a hearing compensation effect that is lower than the theoretical estimate

In addition, the degree of its support is greatly affected by the operation, and it cannot provide a relatively stable support stiffness among patients, resulting in large individual differences in the compensation effect among patients.

Third, the initial pressure of the actuator acting on the round window membrane cannot be controlled

The sensorineural hearing loss targeted by the artificial middle ear mainly deteriorates at high frequencies, and the weakening of the high-frequency output of the above-mentioned actuator will make the artificial middle ear lose its original ability to compensate for sensorineural hearing loss

However, if the above-mentioned loading spring 301 is changed to a larger stiffness, then under the optimal initial pressure of the actuator (15mN), the expansion and contraction displacement is too small (about 20 microns), making it impossible to observe through the compression indicator 302, and thus lose its ability to monitor

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