117 results about "Bone-conduction hearing aid" patented technology

A hearing-aid device and a method for transmitting sound through bone conduction are disclosed. The hearing-aid device comprises a piezoelectric-type actuator, housing and connector. The piezoelectric actuator is preferably a circular flextensional-type actuator mounted along its peripheral edge in a specifically designed circular structure of the housing. During operation, the bone-conduction transducer is placed against the mastoid area behind the ear of the patient. When the device is energized with an alternating electrical voltage, it flexes back and forth like a circular membrane sustained along its periphery and thus, vibrates as a consequence of the inverse piezoelectric effect. Due to the specific and unique designs proposed, these vibrations are directly transferred trough the human skin to the bone structure (the skull) and provide a means for the sound to be transmitted for patients with hearing malfunctions. The housing acts as a holder for the actuators, as a pre-stress application platform, and as a mass which tailors the frequency spectrum of the device. The apparatus exhibits a performance with a very flat response in the frequency spectrum 200 Hz to 10 kHz, which is a greater spectrum range than any other prior art devices disclosed for bone-conduction transduction which are typically limited to less than 4 kHz.

A bone conduction hearing aid system for generating bone conduction vibrations is disclosed. The bone conduction hearing aid system has an external hearing aid unit with a vibrator and a skin contact pressure plate. The skin contact pressure plate is placed on an outside of the external hearing aid unit and the skin contact pressure plate is magnetically attached to an implanted unit anchored to the skull under the skin. The vibrator transforms an electrical signal into mechanical vibrations and the skin contact pressure plate allows transmission of the vibrations from the vibrator to the implanted unit when the external hearing aid unit is magnetically fixed to the implanted unit.

An object of the invention resides in the provision of a bone conduction headset, which is inconspicuous in appearance during wearing thereof, adapted for use in avoiding absorbing nearby people's attention to the headset thus worn, easy to wear and take off in use, and comprises: a band running around a back part of the user's head; a fastening portion formed in each of opposite end portions of the band; a bone conduction speaker provided with a knob which is engaged with the fastening portion; and, an ear engagement portion, which runs over the bone conduction speaker during wearing of the headset to reach and engage with the user's ear. An extension of either the fastening portion in the band or a casing of the bone conduction speaker may be formed into the ear engagement portion.

A vibrator for a bone conduction-type hearing aid device by which sound information is mechanically transmitted via the skull bone directly to the inner ear of a person with impaired hearing. The vibrator includes a coil that is directly into two coil halves for generating a dynamic magnetic field and a permanent magnet for generating a static magnetic field. The permanent magnet is radially magnetized and arranged in such a way that the static and dynamic magnetic fields coincide in air gaps formed between the coil and magnet arrangement and the casing, whereby the vibrator provides an axial force.

A bone conduction hearing aid includes an in-the-ear (ITE) component and a behind-the-ear (BTE) component. A bone vibrator is carried by the ITE component and positioned in the concha of the ear when in use. A vibrationally conductive structural member of the ITE component conducts vibration produced by the vibrator into the ear canal. From there, the vibration is transferred to a cochlea of the user by way of the mastoid bone, enabling enhanced hearing perception in patients with hearing loss.

A spheno-temporal bone conduction communication equipment and / or hearing aid includes a system device, a bone skin conduction oscillator and a carrier device for supporting said abovementioned devices. The carrier device has a structural body, and the structural body allows the supported bone skin conduction oscillator in close contact with the spheno-temporal bone. The bone skin conduction oscillator contains a transducer, and the transducer converts an electrical signal into an acoustic oscillating wave and transmits the acoustic oscillating wave into the inner ear via spheno-temporal bone, or receives an acoustic oscillating wave produced by vibration of the skull when speaking and converts it into an electrical signal. The equipment implements bone conduction transmission of the acoustic oscillating wave via spheno-temporal bone, and can be used in bone conduction speaker, bone conduction microphone, bone conduction multimedia device, bone conduction hearing aid device or bone conduction communication device. The equipment can be used with a nasal bone conduction device, can avoid the defect of much external noise when using air conduction mode and overcome shortcomings of the structure easy to slide and inconvenience to add the component when using commonly used bone conduction.

This invention is about bone conduction headset, method of bone conduction method and eardrum, it has hearing-aid function, provide bone conduction headset which is folded compactly using first and second extension part, first and second hinge part and hinge axis, also provide bone conduction headset which is received and output the signal not only wired but also wireless method.

A hearing-aid device and a method for transmitting sound through bone conduction are disclosed. The hearing-aid device comprises a piezoelectric-type actuator, housing and connector. The piezoelectric actuator is preferably a circular flextensional-type actuator mounted along its peripheral edge in a specifically designed circular structure of the housing. During operation, the bone-conduction transducer is placed against the mastoid area behind the ear of the patient. When the device is energized with an alternating electrical voltage, it flexes back and forth like a circular membrane sustained along its periphery and thus, vibrates as a consequence of the inverse piezoelectric effect. Due to the specific and unique designs proposed, these vibrations are directly transferred through the human skin to the bone structure (the skull) and provide a means for the sound to be transmitted for patients with hearing malfunctions. The housing acts as a holder for the actuators, as a pre-stress application platform, and as a mass which tailors the frequency spectrum of the device. The apparatus exhibits a performance with a very flat response in the frequency spectrum 200 Hz to 10 kHz, which is a greater spectrum range than any other prior art devices disclosed for bone-conduction transduction which are typically limited to less than 4 kHz.

A fastening device for a bone conduction hearing aid comprises a first end portion, a second portion structured and arranged to be coupled to a bone conduction hearing aid, and a transition portion that connects the first and second end portions.

The invention discloses an audio processing method for a bone conduction headset, the bone conduction headset and an audio playback device based on the bone conduction headset. The bone conduction headset comprises a human bone and tissue model modeling module, a digital pre-corrector, a delay estimation unit, a digital-to-analog converter, an analog-digital converter, a first low-pass filter, a second low-pass filter, an audio amplifier, an audio driving amplifier, at least one bone conduction microphone, and at least one bone conduction vibrator. In the method, human bone and tissue attenuation effect information of different users is detected in real time; a compensating transfer function is generated based on the attenuation effect information; and an input audio signal is subjected to digital pre-correction via the compensating transfer function, and then the processed input audio signal is transmitted in human bones and tissues. Through adoption of the method, a problem that experience of the bone conduction headset is different caused by different tissue thickness of the different users is solved.

A bone conduction hearing aid system includes a hearing aid housing with a hearing aid vibrator. A skin interface has an interface connector offset on an outer interface surface and detachably connected to a housing connector. A skin adhesive connects to the skin of a patient user to transmit the sound vibrations through the skin to underlying skull bone for transmission by bone conduction to a hearing organ of the user. When the skin adhesive is pressed against the skin of the user, the skin is initially engaged during an initial engagement period with an initial adhesive force that promotes removal and relocation of the skin interface, and the skin is fully engaged after the initial engagement period with a full adhesive force greater than the initial adhesive force that promotes a fixed secure connection that resists removal of the skin interface.

A bone conduction hearing aid system with right and left ear microphone arrangements; right and left ear ambient sound signal processing units, right and left ear bone conduction output transducers for stimulating the user's right and left ear cochlea, respectively; a right and left ear cross-talk compensation filter units for generating right and left ear crosstalk compensation signals, respectively, from the processed audio signals of the respective signal processing unit according to an estimated transcranial transfer function; and means for subtracting the left ear cross-talk compensation signal from the processed audio signals of the right ear signal processing unit to generate the right ear output audio signals, and means for subtracting the right ear cross-talk compensation signal from the processed audio signals of the left ear signal processing unit to generate the left ear output audio signals.

The disclosed nasal bone conduction hearing aid comprises: a tuning and control equipment to receive and treat external sound signal, a bone-skin conduction oscillation device with an oscillator to receive the signal from former equipment, and a carrier device on nasal part to bear said devices and make said oscillator close contact the nasal bone skin and convert the electric wave received by said oscillation device into oscillatory wave to send to nasal part and into inner ear.

A coupling device for attaching the external hearing aid part to the skull bone anchored part in a bone conducting hearing aid apparatus. The retaining force in the coupling device is substantially established with a permanent magnet. The bone anchored part and the external hearing aid part include a magnetic part.

A bone conduction hearing aid system for generating bone conduction vibrations is disclosed. The bone conduction hearing aid system has a hearing aid with a vibrator. The hearing aid system includes an interconnection unit to connect the hearing aid to the user. There is a coupling between the interconnection unit and the hearing aid to connect and disconnect the hearing aid to and from the interconnection unit. The interconnection unit has connection portion and contact plate portion. The connection portion and the contact plate portion are designed in one integral piece of continuous polymer material. The interconnection unit has a concave or planar adhesive surface that can be adhered to the skin on the head of the user without applying any specific pressure against the skin. The sound vibrations are transmitted from the vibrator to the hearing organ as bone conduction sound vibrations.

The invention regards a method for programming a hearing aid wherein the hearing aid user is initially tested by subjecting the user to air borne sound and / or to bone transmitted vibrations, and based on the test results a bone conducting hearing threshold of a bone integrated bone conducting hearing aid is calculated, and further a bone conducting hearing aid is chosen and applied to a skin penetrating abutment which is firmly attached to a bone integrated fixture in the skull bone of the hearing aid user. According to the invention the vibrator in the chosen hearing aid is caused to vibrate at different frequencies and vibration levels and feed-back from the hearing aid user is obtained in order to obtain knowledge of the hearing aid users experienced hearing threshold with the attached hearing aid and finally the experienced hearing threshold is used to fine tune this same hearing aid for future wearing by the user.

A bone conduction hearing aid system for generating bone conduction vibrations is disclosed. The bone conduction hearing aid system has an external hearing aid unit with a vibrator and a skin contact pressure plate. The skin contact pressure plate is placed on an outside of the external hearing aid unit and the skin contact pressure plate is magnetically attached to an implanted unit anchored to the skull under the skin. The vibrator transforms an electrical signal into mechanical vibrations and the skin contact pressure plate allows transmission of the vibrations from the vibrator to the implanted unit when the external hearing aid unit is magnetically fixed to the implanted unit.

A direct bone conduction hearing aid system for generating direct bone conduction vibration includes a vibrator that is placed in an implanted vibrator unit and an implanted energy-receiving unit that has an energy-receiving inductive coil. A vibrator supply cable connects the implanted energy-receiving unit to the implanted vibrator unit. A mounting arm connects the implanted vibrator unit with an anchoring fixture that is anchored to the skull bone through the skull bone surface. The implanted vibrator unit is positioned in the mastoid cavity. The mounting arm is positioned laterally to the implanted vibrator unit and the bone fixation portion of the anchoring fixture.

A telephone with a receiver arousing bone-conduction and air-conduction hearing converts an input electric voice signal into vibration and acoustic signals. Since a conventional telephone has a receiver for only air-conduction hearing, a hearing impaired person cannot use the conventional telephone. In case of a bone-conduction telephone using a bone-conduction vibrator as a receiver, this vibrator is only used for bone-conduction hearing, so that an additional telephone is needed when the ordinary person and the hearing impaired person live in the same place. The telephone with a receiver arousing bone-conduction and air-conduction hearing uses a vibrator of smoothly arousing bone-conduction and air-conduction hearing as a receiver, is capable of hearing a vibration signal through bone-conduction hearing as well as an acoustic signal through air-conduction hearing, makes a hearing-impaired person with conductive hearing loss and an old person who has difficulty in air-conduction hearing use bone-conduction hearing, and makes an ordinary person having a normal sense of hearing use either bone-conduction hearing in a noise environment or air-conduction hearing in a normal environment.

The hearing aid system has a sound-to-vibration conversion circuitry including a microphone system, an electronic amplifier and a vibrator. A housing accommodates the vibrator. The vibrator is connected to an abutment that goes through the skin. The abutment is connected to a fixture that is anchored in the skull bone. The sound-to-vibration conversion circuitry has an A / D converter that converts an analogue microphone signal into a digital signal.

The hearing aid system (102) has a sound-to-vibration conversion circuitry including a microphone system (108), an electronic amplifier (114) and a vibrator (120). A housing (121) accommodates the vibrator (120). The vibrator (120) is connected to an abutment (124) that goes through the skin. The abutment (124) is connected to a fixture (126) that is anchored in the skull bone (128). The sound-to-vibration conversion circuitry has an AfD converter (212) that converts an analogue microphone signal into a digital signal.

A vibrator for a bone conduction type hearing aid device. The vibrator includes a coil for generating a dynamic magnetic field and two permanent magnets for generating a static magnetic field. The two permanent magnets are working independently from each other in the magnetic circuit and an arranged in such a way that the static and dynamic magnetic fields are substantially separated from each other, but coinciding in the air gaps formed between the coil and magnet arrangement and the casing, whereby the vibrator provides an axial force.

An anchoring system for anchoring a percutaneous attachment for a direct bone-conduction hearing-aid or an outer ear prosthesis to the skull bone, comprising a fixture portion, the fixture portion having a threaded portion. A flange is disposed at one end of the fixture portion. The flange has a surface facing the threaded portion and on this surface there is at least one groove to prevent bone resorption under the flange. The groove extends at least one turn on the side of the flange facing the threaded portion.

Provided are bone conducting hearing devices having a normal force that secures the device to a user. A removable adhesive anchor secures an external component of the bone conducting hearing device to the user and provides reliable connecting that is comfortable, such as by a substantially uniform force generation over the contact area between the device and the user. Because the adhesive anchor is removable, a user can readily and reliably remove the device or connect the device, as desired. Also provide are methods of connecting any of the bone conducting hearing devices provided herein to a user, including the mastoid process of the user.

A bone conduction hearing aid device comprising a vibrator configured to vibrate in response to sound signals received by the device. The device further comprises a housing mass forming a housing for one or more operational components of the device, wherein the housing mass is attached to the vibrator so as to move in response to the vibration. The device also comprises a coupling configured to attach the device to a recipient so as to deliver the generated mechanical to the recipient's skull.

A device for treating and reducing stuttering by utilizing auditory feedback. A bone conducting hearing aid apparatus is arranged to be attached to the skull bone of a user with a stuttering problem so that his ear canal is left free. A tactile component in the form of a vibrator mechanically transmits sound information to the inner ears of the user via the skull bone so that both cochleas are stimulated. The cochlea on the opposite side of the skull receives a signal that is further delayed and also has another frequency characteristics compared to the digital received by the nearest cochlea.

A fastening device for a bone conduction hearing aid comprises a first end portion, a second portion structured and arranged to be coupled to a bone conduction hearing aid, and a transition portion that connects the first and second end portions.