Hearing Aid Fitting Based on Interoceptive Awareness
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Existing hearing aid fitting methods struggle to enhance user acceptance, particularly for first-time users and over-the-counter aids, due to the difficulty in familiarization with complex hearing situations and varying acceptance among users with similar hearing impairments.
Innovation Solution
A method and system that utilize interoceptive awareness to tailor the fitting process of hearing aids, adjusting settings such as directionality and noise suppression based on the user's interoceptive awareness, and providing personalized assistance and training to improve familiarity and acceptance.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If a hearing aid is fitted with multiple setting parameters for user-specific hearing impairment compensation, then the hearing aid can be adapted to individual hearing losses, but the complexity of the fitting process increases and user acceptance varies significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary determination of interoceptive awareness through heartbeat perception tests before the actual fitting process. This preliminary assessment allows the fitting procedure to be tailored in advance based on the user's interoceptive capabilities, simplifying subsequent fitting steps while maintaining individualized adaptation.
Solution Approach 2:
The system changes the parameter of interoceptive awareness determination (through heartbeat perception testing) to classify users into different groups. This parameter change enables the fitting process to be adapted according to interoceptive awareness level, resolving the contradiction between individualized adaptation and process complexity.
2Reliability
If first-time users are provided with full hearing aid functionality, then comprehensive hearing compensation is available, but the difficulty of familiarization increases significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The system dynamically adapts the hearing aid functionality based on the determined interoceptive awareness level. Users with lower interoceptive awareness receive simplified functionality and gradual familiarization, while users with higher interoceptive awareness receive full functionality. This dynamic adaptation maintains hearing compensation effectiveness while reducing familiarization difficulty.
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs preliminary determination of interoceptive awareness to classify users before activating full hearing aid functionality. This preliminary classification enables the system to prepare appropriate familiarization protocols in advance, ensuring that full functionality is provided in a manner matched to the user's perceptual capabilities.
3Measurement precision
If hearing aid settings are optimized for complex hearing situations with noise suppression and directionality, then speech perception in noisy environments improves, but the fitting process becomes more time-consuming
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary determination of interoceptive awareness through heartbeat perception tests, which takes minimal time. Based on this preliminary result, the system pre-configures appropriate noise suppression and directionality settings, avoiding the need for time-consuming iterative fitting procedures while still optimizing speech perception for each user group.
Solution Approach 2:
The system changes the fitting approach based on interoceptive awareness parameter determination. Users with different interoceptive levels receive differently optimized settings for noise suppression and directionality, achieving speech perception improvement without requiring uniform time-intensive fitting for all users.
Data Source
AI summary
A method and a system for fitting or adapting or matching a hearing aid to a user is provided to achieve a high level of acceptance of the user for the hearing aid. In a first step, an interoceptive awareness of the user is established and in a second step, a fitting process for fitting the hearing aid is defined based on the established interoceptive awareness of the user.