Hearing is believing

16 hours ago

2 min read

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AI is transforming many aspects of health care, spanning a wide range of medical conditions, investigations and treatments. The latest technological advances have the potential to make a significant difference to daily life, including for those suffering from hearing loss.

We spoke to Louise Stewart, senior audiologist at Fairfield Hearing, who is seeing rapid developments in the world of hearing health, as a result of AI – and she is keen to introduce cutting-edge aids, to help her customers:

“I envisage AI becoming increasingly sophisticated in hearing aids, with manufacturers integrating advanced technologies into ever-smaller devices,” she explains.

One of the latest hearing aids that Louise offers is the Oticon Zeal™, which she describes as a “game changer” for many.

She says: “Suitability is assessed during an initial appointment, but I anticipate that it will suit a wide range of customers.

“As an independent clinic, we can offer clients a wide variety of manufacturers, makes and models. We are not limited to certain manufacturers like many other providers.

“This means we can tailor our choice of hearing aid to what is best suited to each individual client. Zeal is a great solution as it ticks a lot of boxes in terms of its discreetness and functionality, which is what many of our clients are looking for in a hearing aid.”

Describing some of its main attributes, she says: “It scans your environment 500 times every second and makes thousands of tiny, undetectable adjustments automatically, so that the wearer doesn’t have to keep changing the settings manually.

She adds: “It recognises the difference between speech and noise. When you have hearing loss, your brain has to work incredibly hard to fill in the gaps of missing or distorted sound.

“By organising and balancing the sound before it reaches your ear, the AI does the heavy lifting for you. This reduces the mental effort required to follow a conversation, meaning you feel less exhausted after a social event.”

The aid, which was trained on 12 million different sounds, also enables wearers to answer and end phone calls with a simple double-tap on the ear.

Feedback from customers to date is positive, Louise reports: “They tell me that they appreciate its discreetness, natural sound quality, connectivity and ease of use, as well as being able to hear better in noisy environments.

“One recent client told me that they forgot they were wearing the hearing aid and commented on the excellent quality of sound both for everyday speech and for listening to music.”

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