AI Article Synopsis
- Earmold comfort significantly impacts how satisfied hearing-impaired individuals are with their hearing aids.
- Recent studies show that solid earmolds can create a "closed" feeling, but this can be alleviated by adjusting the vent diameter.
- A new system using sintered filters has been developed to vent earmolds without compromising sound quality, particularly for users with severe to profound hearing loss.
Article Abstract
Earmold comfort is an important factor in the overall satisfaction a hearing-impaired person has with a hearing aid system. Recent research into the subjective effects of earmold venting indicates that, for the naive hearing-aid user, the solid mold produces a "closed" and "blocked" sensation that is relieved to a degree, depending on the vent diameter. To improve earmold comfort, all earmolds should be vented. However, there are certain types of hearing loss where conventional venting techniques would be undesirable, in particular, cases of severe to profound hearing loss where venting would not only adversely affect the desired frequency response characteristics of the hearing aid but would also lead to serious acoustic feedback problems. For this reason a simple system has been developed with sintered filters in the vent line, thus allowing all earmolds to be vented to relieve the occluded ear sensation although retaining the acoustic characteristics of the closed earmold.
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