Remotely controlled, especially remotely programmable hearing ai

Details Remotely controlled, especially remotely programmable hearing ai Remotely controlled, especially remotely programmable hearing ai

1995-05-10

1998-01-20

Kuntz, Curtis

Electrical audio signal processing systems and devices

Sound effects

Reverberators

381 684, 381 68, H04R 2500

Patent

active

057108196

DESCRIPTION:

BRIEF SUMMARY
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

The invention relates to a heating aid system in accordance with the introductory clause of patent claim 1, which is remotely controllable, especially remote-control-programmable with respect to different transmission characteristics.
Such a hearing aid system is known, for example, from DE-A 39 00 588.7.
In the case of all previously known heating aids, whether behind-the-ear hearing aids or hearing aids worn on the concha or hearing aids capable of being largely inserted in the ear canal, determination of the heating curve is normally performed, for example, by a hearing aid specialist using an audiometer, whereby sequences of discrete tone signals with ascending and descending order, each with constantly increasing amplitude, are played back to the patient by means of headphones, and whereby the patient indicates to the hearing aid specialist that the respective hearing threshold has been reached by pressing a pushbutton, for example.
However, this method possesses a large degree of uncertainty in the otherwise always subjective result, whereby psychological influences also play a part. The main cause for the uncertainty and inaccuracy of the result can be found, on the one hand, in the fact that normally never fully sealed headphones are used to determine the audiogram or heating curve, whereas, in contrast, when a hearing aid is worn the sound is transmitted to the ear through a narrow tube and an eartip that seals the ear canal to the outside or via a corresponding ear mold or corresponding otoplasty that seals the ear canal with respect to the outer world. In other words, the sound is output to an often closed cavity (a residual volume) in front of the eardrum by a small, thin tube.
The acoustic characteristics of this type of sound transmission to the eardrum differ to such an extent from those with an open ear canal when using headphones that an uncertainty in the values obtained of up to 20 dB can be expected at higher frequencies. This uncertainty results from the normally performed calculation of the desired gain values of the heating aid, if this is done on the basis of the audiogram values obtained with headphones.


OBJECTS AND SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The object of the invention is to create a heating aid system of the kind mentioned at the start which permits determination, either by the heating aid specialist or the wearer of the heating aid, of a heating curve corresponding much more accurately to the actual conditions, at the same time allowing adjustment of the hearing aid to this, since the actual conditions experienced when wearing the hearing aid are present when the threshold values are determined.
This is achieved by the invention through the characteristics of patent claim 1.
Further characteristics of the invention are described in the other patent claims.


BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWING

The invention will now be described in greater detail on the basis of an example embodiment in conjunction with the enclosed drawing.
In the drawing,
FIG. 1 shows a remotely controllable hearing aid system in accordance with the invention; and
FIG. 2 shows a further embodiment of the remotely controllable hearing aid system.


DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

FIG. 1 shows a remotely controllable hearing aid system in purely schematic form and without any scale ratios. This system initially consists of an external control device 1, as is already known from the state of the art. This external control device 1 contains a keyboard 2, which may possess several rows of keys, pushbuttons or the alike, as well as a display device 3, which may be a liquid crystal display, for example. The keyboard 2 and the display device 3 are connected with a data processing device 4, which contains purely schematically at least a microprocessor, designated by .mu.p, a memory 5 for audiometric data, a control parameter memory 6 and a memory 7 for storing data or parameters which are characteristic for a number of ambient situations. In addition, the external control device 1 addi

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patent: 5604812 (1997-02-01), Meyer
patent: 5606620 (1997-02-01), Weinfurtner

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