Welcome to the Age of Bionic Hearing! |
(ARA) - Better. Stronger. Faster. That was the promise made by those fictional techno-doctors who used their imaginary electronic wizardry to reconstruct Jaime Sommers' character into The Bionic Woman. Fiction back in the 1970s -- today, a reality. Many of the body's functions that have been either damaged or lost can be restored with technology so advanced, it would make even those fictional doctors green with envy. For those who are baby boomers, we have two things in common. First, we probably all remember that television show! Second, we have spent the better part of our lives unwittingly destroying our hearing. Noise exposure in today's society has risen to such an intense and pervasive level that significant and permanent hearing loss by late-middle age is the rule, not the exception. Without The Bionic Woman's doctors to outfit us with a supersensitive bionic ear, what are we to do? The only solution available to most Americans with hearing damage is hearing aids. However, this alternative is not without criticism. In fact, the main disadvantage of conventional hearing aids comes from the fact that they typically make every noise louder. Therefore, a car honking, a jet on takeoff, even a concert recording, all become unbearable to an individual wearing traditional hearing instruments. No wonder so many people fitted with these aids leave them in a dresser drawer! However, hearing-health leader GN ReSound has developed an answer to this issue. GN ReSound has been in the business of creating hearing-health solutions for more than 50 years. Its latest advancement, based on extensive research with traditional hearing aids and its own efforts to digitize sound, has resulted in the Canta7 (pronounced Cn-ta) product line. Featuring "3D Digital" Technology, this innovation digitally reconstructs sound. What does that mean? Bottom line -- its smart technology knows the difference between noise and speech. With this new system, noises are not amplified, and speech is clarified. Big difference. Hearing loss has reached epidemic proportions, with more than 28 million in the United States alone who cannot distinguish words such as fork, torque and short -- it's the initial consonants of "f," "t" and "s" that throw them off. In addition, the number of younger people facing damage is steadily increasing, raising the concerns of those in the hearing health care industry and government health organizations. So if you missed out on the "protect your hearing" message, you're now faced with the message "correct your hearing." And to do that, the bionic opportunities have never been better. That's where GN ReSound's exclusive advancement -- 3D Digital Technology -- comes into the picture. Today, with the incorporation of digital technology and the use of micro-miniature computer processors, hearing-impaired patients can be fitted with sophisticated hearing instruments. They analyze incoming sounds; isolate and actually suppress the noise; digitally reconstruct speech to make it recognizable to the impaired ear; and virtually eliminate that awful, high-pitched squeal of feedback often associated with basic-level hearing aids. "I've been in the hearing health care field for many years and seen constant innovations and upgrades to hearing aids," said audiologist Dr. Jim McDonald, past president of a national audiology organization. "However, this latest innovation is truly revolutionary in how it will increase patients' speech understanding -- and ultimately their satisfaction with hearing instruments as a solution to their loss." The world of bionic hearing truly has arrived. And in today's world of excessive noise exposure and its associated increase in permanent hearing damage, these technological advancements have arrived just in time to make a difference in the lives of millions of Americans with hearing loss. |