MENLO PARK, CALIFORNIA – A new study conducted by the world-renowned audiology team at The National Centre for Audiology at Western University in Ontario, Canada was recently published in Trends in Hearing.
The peer-reviewed study evaluated the benefit of the extended bandwidth of the Earlens direct contact hearing technology and found that “the broader range of sound proved superior in all outcome measures, demonstrating clinically meaningful benefits for patients”.
Those benefits were said to include the ability to:
- Better understand sentences in situations with louder background noise
- More accurately recognize consonant sounds that are critical for distinguishing words
Patient satisfaction was also found to favor the Earlens technology, with the majority of patients preferring the fuller bandwidth over the narrower bandwidth associated with their acoustic hearing aids.
“The findings reinforce the importance of an extended bandwidth in delivering what people with hearing impairment have been requesting for years—better hearing in challenging environments. Hearing aid wearers often complain that they can hear speech but can’t understand it. That is why Earlens is such a game-changing technology. By directly vibrating the eardrum, Earlens accomplishes what traditional hearing aid manufacturers have attempted to achieve through complex algorithms, which will always be constrained by the limitations of physics.”
–Dr. Drew Dundas, study co-author
Based on the hearing benefits observed, the authors conclude that the findings support the value of restoring audibility across an extended bandwidth in hearing aid fittings for patients with mild-to-severe sensorineural hearing loss.*
*Folkeard et al. “Detection, Speech Recognition, Loudness, and Preference Outcomes With a Direct Drive Hearing Aid: Effects of Bandwidth.” Trends in Hearing, April 19, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1177/2331216521999139
About the Study
Trends in Hearing (Trends) is a peer-reviewed open access journal publishing original research and reviews that focus on human hearing, hearing loss, hearing aids, auditory implants, and aural rehabilitation.
“Detection, Speech Recognition, Loudness, and Preference Outcomes with a Direct Drive Hearing Aid: Effects of Bandwidth” is available at the journal website
About Earlens
Earlens is a privately held medical technology company committed to transforming the hearing experience for millions of people who suffer from hearing loss. The company has developed the Earlens® Contact Hearing Solution, which was named a TIME Top 100 Invention of 2020. The Earlens system directly activates the hearing system, delivering the broadest bandwidth available today and superior sound quality. This revolutionary, nonsurgical hearing solution uses a small lens to vibrate the eardrum, replicating the natural hearing process. The Earlens® Contact Hearing Solution received FDA clearance in 2019 for a second generation of the Earlens technology and Earlens 3.0 was introduced in June 2020. For more information, please visit www.earlens.com
