Hearing impairment is a medical condition in which patient is unable to detect some frequencies of sound which are normally other humans can detect. The severity of hearing impairment can vary in different individuals and is more commonly found in age group above 50 years. Besides age related onset, it may also be caused due to disease like measles, meningitis or mumps. Trauma to the auditory system or side effects of some medicines like aminoglycosides, diuretics, aspirin and certain macrolide antibiotics can also produce hearing impairment.
People affected with hearing impairment frequently experience emotional conflicts, isolation and depression due to inability to hear voice coming through telephone, more specifically when using the Internet Protocol for voice over internet communications. Using conventional hearing aid and cochlear implants does not solve this problem because increasing the volume of voice coming through internet telephony also increases background noises.
Fraunhofer Institute for Digital Media Technology has now developed next generation digital hearing aid solution, known as Speech-Improved Telephony. This technology uses algorithms to compensate for those sound frequencies which are detected by patient with greater difficulty. It amplifies the softer sound frequencies to make it more easily detectable by hearing impaired patient, without intensifying the louder sound frequencies. These algorithm parameters can be adjusted by patient himself in a user-friendly manner according to his own specific hearing frequency disability. To make this technology more user friendly, these algorithms can be integrated into all commonly used devices like iPod Touch system, telephone system or audio conferencing system.
