Bone Conduction Hearing Aid Fitting via Osseointegrated Implant
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Solution Overview
Problem
Traditional hearing aid fitting methods, especially for bone-conducted aids, face inaccuracies due to uneven skin attenuation and placement-dependent issues, leading to incorrect fittings and large tolerances in audiometry results, which can result in suboptimal hearing aid performance.
Innovation Solution
A bone-conducted hearing aid system with an osseo-integrated implant providing a fixed connection through the skin, a built-in programmable sine generator for precise vibration frequency and amplitude adjustments, and a push button for user feedback, allowing for accurate audiogram measurement and fitting directly with the intended hearing aid, reducing variability and improving precision.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If traditional BC-audiometry using a calibrated vibrator pressed to the skin is used, then hearing threshold can be measured, but large tolerances and inaccuracies occur due to uneven skin attenuation and placement-dependent issues
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts the vibrator from the skin surface and relocates it to the implanted abutment, which provides a stable bone-conduction interface. This removes the source of measurement error (skin attenuation variability) while preserving the bone-conduction measurement function.
Solution Approach 2:
The osseo-integrated implant abutment serves as an intermediary between the vibrator and the skull bone. This mediator provides a consistent, placement-independent interface that eliminates skin-related measurement errors while maintaining effective bone conduction.
2Measurement precision
If a calibrated vibrator pressed to the skin is used for BC-audiometry, then hearing threshold measurement is possible, but placement-dependent attenuation causes large tolerances in results
Solution Approach 1:
The measurement system extracts the variability factor (skin placement dependency) by moving the vibrator to the implanted abutment, which provides a fixed, reproducible location that eliminates placement consistency issues.
Solution Approach 2:
The osseo-integrated implant is installed beforehand, creating a permanent, precisely positioned interface. This preliminary action ensures that subsequent measurements will always occur at the same location with the same mechanical properties, eliminating placement variability.
3Measurement precision
If traditional audiometry equipment not worn by the client is used, then hearing threshold can be measured, but device-specific tolerances cause fitting inaccuracies
Solution Approach 1:
The bone-conduction hearing device serves multiple functions: it is both the treatment device and the measurement device. By using the actual hearing aid for audiometry, the system eliminates the discrepancy between measurement equipment and treatment equipment, ensuring device-specific fitting accuracy.
Solution Approach 2:
The bone-conduction hearing device performs its own fitting evaluation by serving as the measurement instrument. This self-service approach ensures that the device measures its own performance characteristics, eliminating the need for separate calibration equipment and ensuring consistency between measurement and treatment.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
This approach ensures precise and reproducible vibration transfer to the cochlea, reducing fitting errors and allowing for accurate measurement and adjustment of hearing thresholds, enabling better hearing aid performance and easier future adjustments without external audiometry equipment.
Implementation Method 1
the fixed connection through the skin comprising implant and skin penetrating abutment is avoiding the uneven and placement-dependent attenuation of the skin and it's texture. Also this provides the exact same point of vibration each time the BC-hearing aid is used. Thus a vibration applied to the implant will have same transfer-function of vibration to the cochlea each time used.
Data Source
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AI summary
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.