High Frequency Hearing Loss
New Technology to Combat High Frequency Hearing Loss
A certain type of hearing loss that limits the person's ability to hear high-pitched sounds is referred to as high frequency hearing loss. High frequency hearing loss may impair a person's ability to hear the voices of women and children clearly. This person may have difficulty distinguishing high-pitched background sounds-like bird chirps and music. This type of hearing loss can distort speech and make it difficult for the person to hear some consonants. Words that rhyme may be misheard and confused. Examples of spoken sounds often confused by people with high-frequency hearing loss are consonants such as /f/, /s/, /sh/ and /ch/. These sounds are crucial for speech intelligibility.
Traditionally, the greater the hearing loss, the more gain (amplification) needs to be applied at that frequency. However, for some people, hearing sensitivity is so poor in the high frequencies that it is not possible to provide sufficient gain and achieve audibility. In these cases, the gain is limited by acoustic feedback or by discomfort, resulting from excessive loudness.
To help combat these hearing loss challenges, Phonak (a high tech hearing aid manufacturer) has developed SoundRecover which compresses high-frequency noise into lower frequencies-where a person suffering from hearing loss can better distinguish them.
Because only a selected range of frequencies is targeted (those above a given range), SoundRecover is able to more accurately combat high-frequency hearing loss. Not only is SoundRecover active all the time, the settings are based on the user's hearing loss, which means better compression, and an overall better hearing aid for the patient. Studies have found that SoundRecover benefits people with moderate to profound hearing impairments.