Classifications

• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04R—LOUDSPEAKERS, MICROPHONES, GRAMOPHONE PICK-UPS OR LIKE ACOUSTIC ELECTROMECHANICAL TRANSDUCERS; ELECTRIC HEARING AIDS; PUBLIC ADDRESS SYSTEMS
  • H04R25/00—Electric hearing aids
  • H04R25/70—Adaptation of deaf aid to hearing loss, e.g. initial electronic fitting
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04R—LOUDSPEAKERS, MICROPHONES, GRAMOPHONE PICK-UPS OR LIKE ACOUSTIC ELECTROMECHANICAL TRANSDUCERS; ELECTRIC HEARING AIDS; PUBLIC ADDRESS SYSTEMS
  • H04R2225/00—Details of deaf aids covered by H04R25/00, not provided for in any of its subgroups
  • H04R2225/41—Detection or adaptation of hearing aid parameters or programs to listening situation, e.g. pub, forest
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04R—LOUDSPEAKERS, MICROPHONES, GRAMOPHONE PICK-UPS OR LIKE ACOUSTIC ELECTROMECHANICAL TRANSDUCERS; ELECTRIC HEARING AIDS; PUBLIC ADDRESS SYSTEMS
  • H04R2225/00—Details of deaf aids covered by H04R25/00, not provided for in any of its subgroups
  • H04R2225/43—Signal processing in hearing aids to enhance the speech intelligibility

Definitions

• the present invention refers to a method for the adjustment of settings of a hearing aid according the introduction of claim 1 and to a hearing aid comprising software to implement a method for the adjustment of settings of the aid.
• So called self-learning hearing aids are known, where the adaptation of optimized settings is automatically executed by the hearing aid itself.
• a special acoustical training parcour could be defined, which would present a large variety of significant real life situations to a hearing instrument user, while he/she is continuously adjusting the hearing instrument accordingly.
• Such a training parcour could be provided on a CD, MP3 file/player or alike.
• the hearing instrument would be trained instead of weeks/months and hereby individually optimized much faster.
• differences between the simulated and fully natural situations would remain. The quality of the respective sound presentation via loudspeaker will influence the outcome and validity of the training sequence .
• This provocation could be a change in volume, output level, spectral shape, distortions (feedback-canceller) , noise cleaning (noise canceller, beamformer) , program or any other significant alteration within the actual acoustical environment. If the user would not interfere, the change would not be significant, thus informative for the learning sequence as well. On the other hand it might well be, that the user was not aware about the deviation or was not in a position to react within a reasonable time period. With other words it might well be, that the deviation from the actual setting has to be repeated to again provoke an interaction by the user. The repetition of the provocation can be either an additional deviation or a repetition of the original deviation, which means that before repetition of the provocation the settings will be reset.
• the provoked interaction of the end-user either can e.g. be a change on exactly the same parameter the hearing aid has changed or can consist in simply accepting or declining the change.
• the scope of parameters on which provocation learning can be applied is much broader than in the first case, because it is not necessary that the hearing aid' s end-user interface offers direct access to the changed parameter.
• the provocation could be randomly out of the box or following some rules or templates which means the deviation or changes of the at least one setting for a particular acoustical environment could be changed randomly or according to a predetermined regular or irregular rule, algorithm, etc.
• the changes or deviations in settings may be depending on user responses or data memorized in the meantime of the learning period.
• Provocations strategies and rules can be derived from various tests of different user persons and using different algorithms, programs, etc. according which the deviations or changes of the settings of the hearing instrument are initiated.
• At least one setting can be repeatedly changed or deviated from the proceeding settings for a particular acoustic environment and respective repeated interactions or readjustments done by the user can lead to a final optimized setting value, which can be stored within the hearing instrument as new basic optimized setting of the hearing aid for the mentioned particular acoustic environment .
• so called basic settings are stored which will remain unchanged while a so called actualized setting value for a particular acoustic environment is changed to provoke the user to interact and to readjust the user- setting while the basic device setting remains unchanged. Only if the user person is of the opinion, that the actualized setting or user setting is optimal the basic setting of the hearing instrument will be changed or adjusted respectively. It is further possible that the basic hearing instrument settings will be changed or adjusted only after restart of the hearing instrument.
• At least some of the individual settings of the hearing instrument each for a particular acoustic environment may comprise a basic setting value and an actualized setting value which latter is changed without the influence of the user to provoke the user to interact or adjust the respective user setting, the respective basic setting of the hearing instrument is only adjusted to the respective user setting upon activation by the user, an audiologist, a fitter and/or at restart of the device .
• the user could be informed about the change or deviation from the actual setting after a certain period, first of all asking the user, whether he recognized the change and if yes, if in case of a change or readjustment of the user setting the actual setting is improved, equivalent or worth compared with the initial setting.
• a respective software which enables a hearing instrument to apply the above mentioned method for improved adjustment of hearing aid settings for a particular acoustic environment.
• Preferred of course is a software which is applicable universally in most of the today used hearing aids or hearing instruments respectively at least for some of the settings used within a hearing instrument.

Landscapes

• Health & Medical Sciences (AREA)
• General Health & Medical Sciences (AREA)
• Neurosurgery (AREA)
• Otolaryngology (AREA)
• Physics & Mathematics (AREA)
• Engineering & Computer Science (AREA)
• Acoustics & Sound (AREA)
• Signal Processing (AREA)
• Circuit For Audible Band Transducer (AREA)

Applications Claiming Priority (1)

Publications (1)

Family

ID=37959639

Family Applications (1)

Country Status (4)

Families Citing this family (7)

Family Cites Families (4)

• 2006
  • 2006-07-20 CA CA002656454A patent/CA2656454A1/en not_active Abandoned
  • 2006-07-20 AU AU2006346462A patent/AU2006346462B2/en not_active Ceased
  • 2006-07-20 WO PCT/CH2006/000378 patent/WO2008009142A1/en not_active Ceased
  • 2006-07-20 EP EP06761229A patent/EP2044805A1/de not_active Withdrawn

Non-Patent Citations (1)

Also Published As

Similar Documents

Legal Events