Sound Amplifier Compared To Hearing Aid and Cochlear Implant
10Sound Amplifier vs Hearing Aid vs Cochlear Implant
Whats the difference between a sound amplifier and hearing aid or Cochlear Implant? In this video, I go through the differences.
Loud 'n clear Personal Sound Amplifier Description:
Turn ordinary hearing into extraordinary hearing with the Loud 'N Clear personal sound amplifier. By comfortably nesting on your ear with its circular ear attachment, the Loud 'N Clear allows you to turn up the volume on what people are saying around you
Turn ordinary hearing into extraordinary hearing with the Loud 'N Clear personal sound amplifier. By comfortably nesting on your ear with its circular ear attachment, the Loud 'N Clear allows you to turn up the volume on what people are saying around you without disturbing anyone. Use them at lectures, the theater, church and so much more! You'll never miss another word with the Loud 'N Clear. Includes the two required LCD batteries. Ear piece measures 2 1/2" L.
Hearing Aid Details:
A hearing aid is a device designed to improve hearing by making sound audible to a person with hearing loss. Hearing aids are classified as medical devices in most countries, and regulated by the respective regulations. Small audio amplifiers such as PSAPs or other plain sound reinforcing systems cannot be sold as "hearing aids".
Modern hearing aids require configuration to match the hearing loss, physical features, and lifestyle of the wearer. The hearing aid is fit to the most recent audiogram and is programmed by frequency. This process is called "fitting" and is performed by a Doctor of Audiology, also called an audiologist (AuD), or by a Hearing Instrument Specialist (HIS). The amount of benefit a hearing aid delivers depends in large part on the quality of its fitting. Almost all hearing aids in use in the US are digital hearing aids
A cochlear implant (CI) Details: is a surgically implanted neuroprosthetic device to provide a person with moderate to profound sensorineural hearing loss a modified sense of sound. CI bypasses the normal acoustic hearing process to replace it with electric signals which directly stimulate the auditory nerve. Cochlear implants with intensive auditory training a person may learn to interpret those signals as sound and speech. However, one third of deaf children do not develop language if they are on a CI program alone and have no sign language input.[1]
The implant has two main components. The outside component is generally worn behind the ear, but could also be attached to clothing, for example, in young children. This component, the sound processor, contains microphones, electronics that include Digital Signal Processor chips, battery, and a coil which transmits a signal to the implant across the skin. The inside component, the actual implant, has a coil to receive signals, electronics, and an array of electrodes which is placed into the cochlea, which stimulate the cochlear nerve.
The surgical procedure is performed under general anesthesia. Surgical risks are minimal but can include tinnitus and dizziness.
From the early days of implants in the 1970s and the 1980s, speech perception via an implant has steadily increased. Many users of modern implants gain reasonable to good hearing and speech perception skills post-implantation, especially when combined with lipreading.[1][2] However, for pre-lingually Deaf children the risk of not acquiring spoken language even with an implant may be as high as 30%.[2] One of the challenges that remain with these implants is that hearing and speech understanding skills after implantation show a wide range of variation across individual implant users. Factors such as duration and cause of hearing loss, how the implant is situated in the cochlea, the overall health of the cochlear nerve, but also individual capabilities of re-learning are considered to contribute to this variation, yet no certain predictive factors are known.[3][4][5]
Despite providing the ability for hearing and oral speech communication to children and adults with severe to profound hearing loss, there is also controversy around the devices. Much of the strongest objection to cochlear implants has come from the Deaf community. For some in the Deaf community, cochlear implants are an affront to their culture, which as some view it, is a minority threatened by the hearing majority.[6]