The standard treatments for hearing loss are medical devices like hearing aids and cochlear implants. We want to improve how well these devices work for the people who use them, so they can hear as well as possible.
Shakib, a hearing aid user:
Prior to having a hearing aid I would sometimes feel excluded from conversations and banter as I couldn’t hear everything. Now, at home I can have my kids on either side of me when we are having a conversation or watching TV. When we are in the car, I can hear whoever is in the passenger seat or back, which is huge because I’ve never been able to do that before.” Read Shakib’s story.
Our impact in improving hearing aids and cochlear implants
What we’ve done
We’ve improved NHS hearing aids and fitting hearing aids using evidence from our research. The first research project we funded at the University of Southampton in 2000 compared the benefits of analogue and digital hearing aids. The research showed that people generally preferred digital hearing aids. Based on this and other evidence, in the mid-2000s, we persuaded the NHS to modernise audiology services and supply digital hearing aids to everyone.
We also funded research at the University of Cambridge, in the laboratory of Professor Brian Moore, to improve the diagnosis of hearing loss and the fitting of hearing aids to give better performance.
One project focused on how to adjust a hearing aid quickly to give the best possible hearing, designed specifically for busy audiology clinics. The method developed is especially suitable for fitting hearing aids that provide amplification over a wide range of frequencies (amplifying low- through to high-pitched sounds).
The fitting method is now being used in audiology clinics and by hearing aid manufacturers all over the world, providing the best possible hearing outcomes for everyone who uses hearing aids
Dr Tobias Goehring, University of Cambridge:
“In the next 25 years, new clinical technologies will increase the precision of diagnosis and help to optimize the fitting of hearing devices for individual listeners. In the longer term, the big steps will be new medical treatments for hearing loss and combining hearing devices with these, for example to make cochlear implants that use precise light stimulation to achieve better sound quality.”
What we’re doing now
We’re funding research into improving cochlear implants, looking at:
- improving how we can measure how well a cochlear implant works in babies and infants (at the Bionics Institute in Australia)
- developing robotic surgical technology that can insert a cochlear implant with less damage to the cells in the inner ear (at Brunel University London)
- improving cochlear implant programming, especially so that they work better in background noise (at the University of Cambridge).
What we can achieve together in the next 25 years
Our future work into improving hearing aids and cochlear implants includes:
- next-generation cochlear implants that use light to stimulate the auditory nerve and provide a more natural sensation of hearing to those who use them
- improvements in cochlear implant surgery meaning that even more people with hearing loss can benefit from this technology
- hearing aids that work well in all situations allowing those who use them to hear well all the time.