MANHASSET, NY -- A proof-of-concept prototype microphoneimplanted in the middle ear promises to partly offset the need for wearing anouter hearing aid.
The device would still require patients to wear a chargerbehind the ear while sleeping to recharge an implanted battery.
The current prototype of the packaged, middle-ear microphonemeasures 2.5 x 6.2 mm and weighs 25 mgrams, or less than a thousandth of anounce.
The package is to be reduced to 2 x 2 mm, according toresearchers Darrin J. Young, associate professor of electrical and computerengineering at the University of Utah and USTAR, the Utah Science Technologyand Research initiative.
The National Institutes of Health says almost 220,000 peopleworldwide with profound deafness or severe hearing impairment have receivedcochlear implants, about one-third of them in the United States, wheretwo-fifths of the recipients are children.
A microphone and related electronics worn outside the headraises reliability issues, prevents patients from swimming and creates socialstigma.
The system developed by Young implants all the externalcomponents. Sound moves through the ear canal to the eardrum, which vibrates asit does normally. An attached accelerometer sensor detects the vibration at theumbo part of the ear and thru processorconverts them into electrical signals that are sent to the electrodes in thecochlea.
"Everything is the same as a conventional cochlear implant,except we use an implantable microphone that uses the vibration of the bone,"Young explained.
Young conducted the study with Mark Zurcher and Wen Ko, whoare his former electrical engineering colleagues at Case Western ReserveUniversity in Cleveland, and with ear-nose-throat physicians Maroun Semaan andCliff Megerian of University Hospitals Case Medical Center.
The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health(NIH-DC-006850).
The device has been successfully tested in the ear canals offour cadavers. Tests in people are about three years away, according to Young.
The paper of the research study is published in IEEE'sjournal Transactions on Biomedical Engineering.
This story was originally posted by EETimes.
