Confident Hearing :: a UK Hearing Aid Resource

Scientists in California have come up with a different kind of hearing aid. The device, called the Lyric, is currently being trialled in 500 patients and it appears to have overcome many of the problems associated with traditional analogue hearing aids.

The Lyric, made by InSound Medical of Newark, California, is hidden deep inside the ear canal, just four millimeters (about one-sixth of an inch) from the ear drum. While doctors for years have been implanting hearing devices in the middle ear, the Lyric is not an implant: it can be removed with a small magnet. It is worn 24 hours a day, and its batteries last between one and four months.

Typically, anything that clogs up a persons ear canal would trap moisture and pose an infection risk, but the Lyric is surrounded by a spongy material that allows moisture to escape. Because it sits so close to the ear drum, doctors say that it works more efficiently and that sounds are more natural because they don’t have to be amplified as much.

When the Lyric’s battery dies, the entire device is replaced. Patients do not pay for a new device every time; instead, they pay an annual subscription fee of between $2,900 to $3,600 (approx £1450 to £1800) for both ears. The price is less if the hearing loss is in only one ear.

A magnet is used to control the volume, turn it on and off and remove it when the battery runs out. It takes only a few minutes for a doctor to insert a replacement device.

The Lyric does not work for everyone. In particular, some ear canals are too narrow to accommodate it, and the company estimates that it is not suitable for up to half of potential patients. A planned newer version should work for about 85 percent of patients, it says.

The Lyric is already getting an enthusiastic reception from patients and from hearing specialists not connected with the company. “There are a certain number of patients who just can’t get over having something in their ear, just as there are a certain number of patients who can’t wear contact lenses,” said Chester Griffiths, chairman of the department of surgery at the Santa Monica UCLA Medical Center. “But that’s the minority. The patients that have them love them.”

Griffiths says he has no financial ties to the Lyric, nor does he receive a commission for referring patients.

One patient who swears by the device is Mike Waufle, the 53-year-old defensive line coach for the New York Giants. After a stint in the Marines and regular exposure to the sounds of gunfire, Waufle suffered hearing loss that grew worse and worse as he aged.

On the football field, he just turned up the volume on his headset. But the locker room was a different story. Some voices were impossible to hear (including that of his last boss, Jon Gruden, the former Oakland Raiders head coach). Players learned they needed to face him when they spoke to him. Using a traditional hearing aid, he found it difficult to control his own voice.

“I teach a lot in a classroom as a coach, but when I would wear a hearing aid my voice pattern wasn’t very good,” he said. “It was all over the place. I just took it out most of the time. I missed an awful lot.”

As it happened, a team doctor was one of a handful of physicians test-marketing the Lyric, which has been available for about 16 months. Waufle tried it, and he says it has changed his life.

“My voice pattern is so natural, and I hear so much better,” he said. “Obviously, it’s easier to carry on normal conversations without having to always say, ‘Huh? What did you say?’ And it helps just enjoying life over all and being able to hear the simple things like birds and other sounds you take for granted.”

Waufle says he has no financial ties to the company and receives no benefit for talking about his experience with the device. (The company says none of the people featured in testimonials on its Web site, www.lyrichearing.com, receive any form of compensation for their endorsements.)

Right now, the Lyric is offered only through a dozen clinics in California, Florida and New Jersey, but it should be available at about 100 sites by the end of the year. Some patients who don’t live near a clinic simply fly or drive to a site four or five times a year. InSound is a privately held firm, although the pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson is a major investor.

Robert Schindler, a co-founder of InSound and chairman emeritus of the department of otolaryngology at the University of California, San Francisco, says he has had hearing loss most of his life and has worn a Lyric since 2005. He says he remembers listening to an orchestra and hearing the light ping of the triangle.

“I realized I hadn’t heard it before,” he said. “That was a very exciting moment for me.”

There is no word on when the “lyric” will become available in the UK

Source iht.com

For the past seven years Natalie Riley, now 11, had suffered from a stammer so severe she’d never had a free-flowing conversation with them. She’d been so embarrassed by her speech problem that even with her close friends she spoke only in single words.

“Her life was blighted by this stammer – there was no way of disguising it and it was heartbreaking,” says her mother Lindsey, 42, a school business manager she would struggle to get her first word out and sometimes her face would contort with the effort of trying to speak. She never wanted to take part in school activities – even games – and would never want to answer a question in class. She was bullied because of her stammer and started to become more self-conscious.”

Then eight months ago, Natalie had a special hearing aid fitted and, says her mother, her life has been transformed.

The SpeechEasy device works by recreating the choral effect. It looks – and is worn – like a hearing aid, and is placed behind the ear or inside the ear canal. When someone with a stammer talks using a SpeechEasy, their words are captured on microphone and replayed in their ear at a slightly higher frequency (this helps them hear it better).

The SpeechEasy replays these words within 60 milliseconds – fooling the brain into thinking the stammerer is speaking at the same time as other people, triggering the choral effect. According to manufacturers, the device has around an 80 per cent success rate. Peter Jones, a clinical physiologist at BMI The Alexandra Hospital in Manchester, who treated Natalie, says: “Some people who use the device find that after a few months, they are cured completely because using this system kicks them into a manner of speaking without stammer.”

Normally the device is considered suitable only for those aged 16 or over because until the age of 14, a stammer can be solved with speech therapy. However, Natalie’s case was so severe that it was decided she might benefit from it.

Natalie was fitted with the device in September.

A burglar stole a £2,000 hearing aid from a disabled man in what police described as a “particularly vile” crime.

The thief broke into 44-year-old David Lenehan’s house in Crownhill Road, between 10.30pm and midnight on Monday, April 7 and stole the piece of specialist equipment, without which he finds it difficult to communicate. The crime was discovered only when one of his carers, on whom he relies to get in and out of bed, came at 7.30am the following day, to find the front door wide open, with the key still in it. The burglar had smashed open a box with a keypad containing the key to the home and then opened the front door. Mr Lenehan was asleep at the time of the incident and could not hear the intruder.

Investigating officer Dc Tona Pooley said: “This is a particularly vile crime, the hearing aid is absolutely worthless to anyone else.” She appealed for anyone who had found a hearing aid discarded in the area of Crownhill Road since the break-in on Monday night.

Mr Lenehan has been extremely shaken up by the incident and has moved temporarily into Whitleigh House, a residential home, whilst he recovers from the stress of the ordeal. He said, “I’m just glad I’m here to tell the tale.” His carer of five years, Joyce Champion, said: “David is very vulnerable. He cannot get out of bed on his own. Once he’s in his wheelchair, this is where he’s got to stay.

“If someone was to attack David, he wouldn’t be able to do anything. He is deeply distressed. David is happy-go-lucky with a brilliant outlook on life, he is now not the same David. It’s really shaken him. It could have been fatal.”

David had bought the new hearing aid out of his own funds and it wasn’t covered by insurance.

Other items that were stolen included his wallet and a cash box, both containing money, cash cards and important documents such as his birth certificate.

Joyce said carers had had their tyres punctured outside his house in the weeks leading up to the incident and a bungalow behind David’s had also been vandalised, its windows having been smashed.

DC Pooley said scenes of crime officers had combed the house and police have carried out house-to-house inquiries. She also appealed for anyone who knew anything about the burglary to get in touch.

Anyone who can help should contact police on 08452 777444, quoting crime number EL082545

Source thisisplymouth.co.uk

Legendary motor-racing commentator Murray Walker is one of the millions who have come to terms with hearing loss, following years of exposure to extremely loud engines. Murray decided to fine-tune his hearing to improve his quality of life. He made a hearing ‘pit stop’ by taking a five-minute hearing health test, which confirmed he had a hearing loss. Following a full hearing assessment Murray was fitted with state-of-the-art digital hearing aids. He’s delighted with the results: “My hearing is now so much clearer. When I wear my hearing aids I notice an immediately discernible improvement yet they’re so comfortable I forget I’m wearing them”.

Confident Hearing is able to supply the latest in digital hearing aid products. We have extensive experience in fitting the latest in discreet hearing instrumentation.

All of our audiologists are qualified members of the BSA (British Society of qualified audiologists) and registered with the Hearing Aid Council – We ourselves are also registered members of Hearing Aid Council. You can therefore rest assured you will receive a regulated and understanding free consultation.

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We will provide you with a follow up appointment within 6 weeks of you being fitted with your hearing aid/s, after which all servicing, adjustments and future hearing assessments are included. This enables us to ensure that your hearing aids are giving you optimum benefit.

We cover all areas of the UK and can arrange a consultation at short notice or at a time outside of normal business hours. In short, we will accommodate whatever requirements you have in a timely, efficient and caring manner. Please contact us on the telephone number listed above and we will try our best to help you hear better and save you money.

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