"Sound is one thing, but making sense of sound is everything to someone with a hearing loss. That core realisation led us to understand that we can't merely compensate for damage in the ear, but that we need to help the brain understand the sound it receives from the ears or a hearing device. We call it, BrainHearing, the brainchild of 100 years of experience and innovation. It is a whole new mind set in audiology and hearing care."
Four key audiological features enable the brain to make sense of sound:
To provide the brain with the input it needs to make sense of sound, the technology must fulfil a number of demands. "In order for the brain to make sense of sound, we have to allow both ears to work together, to keep the natural sound level differences occurring at each ear. It is about preserving the important details of sounds while maintaining as much of the surrounding environment as possible. From there, we prioritise speech information over other sounds and allow the hearing device to deliver varying degrees of directionality.
"Once you have these two pillars in place, the brain has the freedom to focus by understanding speech over other noises, engaging in conversation and switching focus when necessary (free focus). Finally, the company's YouMatic helps to make sounds more recognisable, allowing the user to enjoy an enhanced, enriched listening experience according to his or her own sound preferences and tastes."
Oticon hearing instruments with this technology are designed for the brain, supporting the hard work it does. By combining the spatial sound, speech guard, free focus and YouMatic technologies, BrainHearing was born. "The results speak for themselves. In our international satisfaction study that was completed in 2013, our overall satisfaction for both new and experienced hearing instrument users was rated at 96%, which revolutionises everything we know about the hearing industry," concludes Sherban.
