Estimates suggest that 40 per cent of over-50s experience some level of hearing loss. In the past, technology such as hearing aids merely focused on making things louder, but the new generation of innovations could be set to change that, as Agetech World discovers.
Age UK estimates that around 40 per cent of people over 50 in the UK have some form of hearing impairment. Age-related hearing loss, called presbycusis, is often caused by wear and tear to the tiny hair cells in the inner ear.
It can also be caused by regular exposure to loud noises, a history of middle ear disease or a family history.
Solutions to hearing loss have, in the past, generally focused on making noises louder, not necessarily clearer, but innovations in hearing tech are starting to look at the issue from a different angle.
Hearing aids 2.0
Hearing aids and cochlear implants have long been the go-to solution for hearing loss, but the technology has not particularly moved on since they were first introduced.
Hearing aids are small electronic devices worn in the ear that make sounds louder and clearer, while cochlear implants turn sound into electrical signals that are then sent to part of the inner ear called the cochlea.
However, both essentially focus on making noise louder, using a microphone to pick up sounds and passing it to a processor.
New tech means that today’s hearing aids come with more added extras than ever before, improving user experience – although it does come at a cost.
For example, some hearing aids are now equipped with Bluetooth technology, which can improve the signal-to-noise ratio and eliminate feedback from the microphone. This is because the signal bypasses the microphone and directly enters the hearing aid’s processor.
Other premium models also use AI technology to replicate the mimic how the brain naturally receives sound. It does this through logging volume control settings and programme preferences for certain sound environments and then making these changes automatically when the environment is detected.
Furthermore, ‘denoising’ tech under development can help separate sounds to alleviate what has been termed the ‘cocktail party’ problem; picking up specific sounds in a crowded, noisy environment.
A team at Ohio State University recently worked on an AI programme that can take the audio of two competing speakers and edit out one voice. In one test, older adults with hearing aids went from being able to understand less than 10 per cent of a conversation to understanding more than 80 per cent – better than their younger, normal-hearing counterparts, who caught less than 70 per cent.
Built-in subtitles
Subtitles are nothing new; they’ve been around in film and TV since the 1930s. However, the rise in speech-to-text technology mean the idea of personalised subtitles could become a reality for the hard of hearing.
While speech-to-text apps already exist, they are not conducive to a natural flow of conversation, as the person using them needs to keep their focus on their phone.
A number of products are currently in development to counteract this for a more naturalistic interaction; smart glasses that, via an app on a smartphone, would listen to a conversation and transcribe the speech as it happens.
The text would be delivered instantaneously to the eyeglasses, creating real-time subtitles using augmented reality.
Hearing aid and health app
If a user is wearing a hearing aid, why not make it perform as many functions as possible? That’s the thinking behind the Stakey Livio AI, billed as the world’s first healthable hearing aid.
As well as all the classic functions of a traditional hearing tech device, it also offers brain and body activity tracking. It also features an innovative Mask Mode feature, to make it easier to hear people who are wearing face masks.
Another feature that is particularly useful is fall detection; 40 per cent of people who live at home over age of 65 will fall at least once a year, and those with mild hearing loss are three times more likely to have a history of falling. Livio’s built-in detector automatically alerts family or carers when the user falls, along with a GPS signal.
Regrowing hearing
Hearing loss is often caused by damage to the tiny hairs inside the ear, and work is currently taking place on using drug therapies to regrow those hairs and therefore reverse any hearing loss.
Such a development would be beneficial to anyone who has lost hearing as a result of missing or damaged hair cells, such as babies born deaf through specific genetic conditions, or people who have lost their hearing after working in extreme noise.
While hair cell regeneration is in the very early stages – a few therapies using different methods are currently in human clinical trials, but most are still at lab stage – scientists are confident that, at some point, they will be able to treat hearing loss with drugs.
