WO2007009287A2 - Audiometrie in situ auto-rythmee - Google Patents

Audiometrie in situ auto-rythmee Download PDF

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Publication number
WO2007009287A2
WO2007009287A2 PCT/CH2006/000450 CH2006000450W WO2007009287A2 WO 2007009287 A2 WO2007009287 A2 WO 2007009287A2 CH 2006000450 W CH2006000450 W CH 2006000450W WO 2007009287 A2 WO2007009287 A2 WO 2007009287A2
Authority
WO
WIPO (PCT)
Prior art keywords
sound
person
frequency
samples
sample
Prior art date
Application number
PCT/CH2006/000450
Other languages
English (en)
Other versions
WO2007009287A3 (fr
Inventor
Otto Hermann Heller
Agnes Herta Anneke Opp-Enzinger
Original Assignee
Phonak Ag
Priority date (The priority date is an assumption and is not a legal conclusion. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation as to the accuracy of the date listed.)
Filing date
Publication date
Application filed by Phonak Ag filed Critical Phonak Ag
Priority to PCT/CH2006/000450 priority Critical patent/WO2007009287A2/fr
Priority to EP06775144A priority patent/EP2053970A2/fr
Publication of WO2007009287A2 publication Critical patent/WO2007009287A2/fr
Publication of WO2007009287A3 publication Critical patent/WO2007009287A3/fr

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Classifications

    • A—HUMAN NECESSITIES
    • A61—MEDICAL OR VETERINARY SCIENCE; HYGIENE
    • A61B—DIAGNOSIS; SURGERY; IDENTIFICATION
    • A61B5/00—Measuring for diagnostic purposes; Identification of persons
    • A61B5/12—Audiometering
    • A61B5/121—Audiometering evaluating hearing capacity

Definitions

  • the present invention refers to a method for measuring the hearing ability or for the diagnosis of the hearing loss of a person according to the introduction of claim 1 and to an arrangement for the diagnosis of a hearing loss of a person.
  • the invention relates to the field of fitting diagnostics.
  • in-situ-threshold measurement is offered by some hearing aid manufacturers for pre-setting the hearing aids. This means that the hearing aid produces the stimuli and is used as audiometrical transducer.
  • the result of the measurement reflects the hearing loss and specialties of the acoustical coupling. This is wanted although separation of acoustic coupling effects and hearing loss is not precise.
  • the method which is to be applied for measuring the hearing threshold mimics the methods which are applied with clinical audiometers.
  • the audiologist uses a kind of bracketing procedure to determine the lowest audible sound pressure level at a particular frequency.
  • the end user or the person for which the hearing loss is to be determined must stay attentive without interruption in order to hear if a sound is audible or not.
  • a plurality of sound samples are initiated by the audiologist, as e.g. at least
  • the disadvantage of this solution is that the end user must maintain a high level of auditory attention in order not to miss any audible sound. In other words, the end user must stay attentive for at least 15 or more sound samples, which is rather stressful, tiring and as a consequence often leads to imprecise measurements. This is especially true if the end user is e.g. a child or any other person with difficulties to concentrate over extended periods of time.
  • the difficulty to maintain constant attentiveness is particularly detrimental in remote hearing test and fitting processes, e.g. over the internet, where the audiologist does not have visual control of the state of attentiveness of the test person, or in self-test and self-fitting situations, where the person performs a particular test or fitting method without any supervision of a professional in the field.
  • an object of the present invention is to improve the above mentioned methods with the goal of enhancing the quality of the respective results, which means in particular to improve and keep constant the attention of the end user or the person of which the hearing loss is to be determined during the recognition of the audible sound samples at the various frequencies.
  • the problem to be solved is the inefficient handling of auditory attention in in-situ threshold measurements. Unnecessary fatigue and decreased precision of the measurements should be avoided by proposing an appropriate improvement of the known method.
  • the inventive method proposes that the initiation of sound samples to be recognized by the person is performed by the person itself.
  • the various sound samples at different frequencies and different sound pressure levels are initiated at least mainly by the person whose hearing ability or hearing loss is to be determined.
  • the sound sample is acoustically generated in situ, which means within the hearing device worn by the person. This can be done be a sound generator inside the hearing device or by feeding the sound sample into the hearing device electrically or wirelessly in order to avoid all calibration issues which relate to the usage of an external loudspeaker generating the sound.
  • the proposed inventive method is of course not restricted to commonly used and worn hearing devices, but is also applicable to any kind of hearing aids, middle-ear implants, cochlear implants, etc., which are worn by the person.
  • the initiation of the sound sample is effected manually by touching a push-button, a touch-screen or the like.
  • the initiation can be effected on a display or touch-screen displaying at least one object which stands for a certain sound frequency - or more generally for a certain sound type, e.g. a phoneme, a kind of noise etc. -, upon touching the object the sound sample with the sound frequency - or of the respective sound type is initiated.
  • a certain sound frequency - or more generally for a certain sound type e.g. a phoneme, a kind of noise etc. -
  • hearing tests e.g. on the internet such as e.g. from the Hoerforum, Siemens, etc.
  • self-initiated hearing tests are offered, in which a person of whom the hearing ability has to be determined can initiate the test. But once the first test sample being initiated the following test cycle is performed automatically, which means after each hearing test sample being recognized by the person, the next one will be initiated automatically. In other words within the known hearing tests the same problem will occur as above described in relation to the prior art. It is therefore important that at least most of the sound samples to be recognized by the person are performed by the person itself. Furthermore, as proposed according to the present invention, it is preferred that the sound sample is created in situ, which means within the hearing device worn by the person. Further possible options for the inventive method are characterized within one of the dependent claims.
  • One arrangement as proposed according to the present invention comprises preferably a touch-screen displaying at least one object which stands for certain sound frequencies, and which makes associations to a person for certain sound frequencies. Furthermore, the arrangement comprises a sound sample producing device, which is operable upon touching the object which is displayed on the touch screen.
  • the at least one displayed object may be an animal, a vehicle, an audio sample creating object, etc. etc. According to a further embodiment of the present invention it is possible that a plurality of the same or similar objects is displayed or a plurality of different objects.
  • the one object or each of the plurality of the various objects are connected to the sound sample producing device which produces audio samples or sound samples according to the specific frequency representative for the respective objects at different sound pressure levels, which means e.g. that for one and the same kind of objects sound samples or audio samples respectively are created by the sound sample producing device at different sound pressure levels.
  • the actual sound pressure level of a specific sample is determined by the software or the audiologist depending on the answers of the test person in response to previous sound samples.
  • Fig. 1 shows schematically an inventive display or touch-screen for initiation of sound samples
  • Fig. 2 a specific design of a touch-screen
  • Fig. 3 shows schematically one example of a display or touch-screen respectively displaying various objects, each responsible for a certain frequency
  • Fig. 4 shows the specific touch-screen of fig. 2 displaying one object as shown in fig. 3
  • Fig. 5 shows the display of fig. 3 indicating at the same time the number of sound samples to be initiated for each object;
  • Fig. 6 shows the specific display according to fig. 2 displaying one specific object out of fig. 5 together with the amount of sound samples to be initiated;
  • Fig. 7 shows schematically the execution of the inventive method displaying the results of the measurements ;
  • Fig. 8 shows schematically and by way of a diagram the results of the hearing measurement of a person with no hearing loss, and
  • Fig. 9 shows by way of diagrams schematically the results of the measurement of a person having a hearing loss.
  • Fig. 1 shows schematically an inventive display 1 which is preferably a display screen or a touch screen 3 for initiating the sound samples.
  • the person of which the hearing ability or the hearing loss respectively is to be determined can initiate the sound sample by pressing one of the push buttons 5 or the respective contact-sensitive area 5 arranged on the touch-screen 3.
  • a computer display screen it is also possible to initiate the audio sample at a certain location by means of a cursor and a mouse click.
  • On this display screen or touch-screen a plurality of locations, contact-sensitive areas or push buttons can be placed, each of the locations, buttons or areas being connected to a respective audio or sound sample-initiating arrangement to initiate the sound sample to be recognized by the person.
  • buttons or contact areas may be neutral or anonymous as shown in fig. 1 and only e.g. an audiologist being responsible for the diagnostic procedure knows which button or area respectively stands for which frequency and sound pressure.
  • the actual sound pressure level of a specific sample is determined by the software or the audiologist depending on the answers of the test person in response to previous sound samples.
  • Fig. 2 shows a specific possible design of an inventive display comprising a touch-screen 3, on which at least one contact area for initiating sound samples may be arranged.
  • fig. 3 shows schematically one example of a display or touch-screen respectively displaying various objects, each being responsible for a certain frequency level.
  • a teddy bear 7 can be displayed being representative for a sound sample of a 500 Hz frequency.
  • an elephant 9 can be displayed being representative for a sound sample with 1000 Hz frequency.
  • a cat 11 being representative for a 2000 Hz frequency sample
  • a mouse 13 being representative for a 4000 Hz frequency sample.
  • a respective object as e.g. a teddy bear 7 can be displayed on the touch-screen 3 to initiate a sound sample with 500 Hz frequency.
  • the child touches the shown animal as the teddy bear 7 to check if it makes a tone or not.
  • sound samples with a frequency of 500 Hz are initiated, each sample having a different loudness or sound pressure which is known to the audiologist or the diagnostic algorithm, respectively, and which is to be recognized or detected by the child.
  • the plurality of contact-sensitive areas can be arranged within the inventive display or the touchscreen respectively.
  • sixteen respective contact-sensitive areas are arranged as shown in fig. 6, which can be touched by the person of whom the hearing loss is to be determined.
  • Each of the sixteen small bears arranged at 25 stands for a specific sound sample with a frequency of 500 Hz.
  • the respective symbol may disappear from the touch-screen 3 or may be dimmed.
  • the symbol, such as a bear 15 may remain on the touch screen, which means that the sample has to be repeated.
  • Fig. 7 schematically the procedure of audiometric test sampling for one frequency is shown in form of a table. First, during an instruction phase, it is tested whether the test person of which the hearing loss is to be determined can operate the system in an appropriate manner. According to the table 31 as shown in fig.
  • Test sample 1 at a frequency of 500 Hz is being initiated by the test person e.g. using a mouse and a cursor on a computer display by pressing a push button on a keyboard or by touching a contact-sensitive area on the touch-screen as described in Fig. 1 - 6.
  • Either the audiologist or an algorithm selects the levels of the sound samples to be initiated and to be recognized by the user person.
  • the first sound sample has a sound pressure level of 30 dB
  • the third sample is a mute sample to check, whether the sound sample- initiating test person is correctly recognizing the sound samples.
  • the sample with a loudness of 20 dB still was audible by the user person, so that within the following measurement section loudness samples of 20 dB or lower should be initiated to be recognized by the user person.
  • the instruction phase can be important to determine the range of loudness of the samples for the following true measurement phase. But primary the instruction phase should ensure, that the test person has understood the procedure.
  • the measurement first of the left ear and later on of the right ear or vice versa can be started.
  • four samples have been used to determine the hearing ability of the test person.
  • the sound pressure samples with a level of 20 dB and 10 dB have been recognized by the user person, while the sound samples of 5 dB and 0 dB were not recognized. In other words the hearing ability stops between a level of 5 dB and 10 dB.
  • the same procedure shall be executed for the right ear, where according to the results as shown in fig. 7 the hearing ability is somewhat better, as also the sound sample with a level of 5 dB was recognized by the user person. If the recognition of the samples is correct the measurement first of the left ear and later on of the right ear can be started. For each side four samples have been used to determine the hearing ability of the test person. In fig. 8 in table 33 the results of test sample series are shown for a person having a normal hearing ability, in diagram 35 the results are shown for the right ear, and in diagram 37 for the left ear. Similar to the test sampling procedure as shown in fig.
  • FIG. 8 While in fig. 8 the results are shown from a person with normal hearing ability, fig. 9 shows the results in table 34 of a person having a substantial hearing loss.
  • diagram 36 includes the test results of the right ear at the four given frequencies and diagram 38 represents the test results for the left ear. For each frequency four different test series have been conducted.
  • the results as shown in diagram 36 and 38 lead to the conclusion that the user person suffers under a substantial hearing loss. This is due to the fact that sound samples e.g. at a frequency of 500 Hz with a sound pressure of 20 dB were not recognized by the user person. The border of recognition is somewhere in the area of approx. 30 dB.
  • the main point of the present invention is that at least most of the sound samples being used for the determination of the hearing ability or the hearing loss of a user person are initiated by the person itself and that the samples are generated in situ, which means within the hearing aid worn by the person.

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  • Health & Medical Sciences (AREA)
  • Life Sciences & Earth Sciences (AREA)
  • Audiology, Speech & Language Pathology (AREA)
  • Physics & Mathematics (AREA)
  • Engineering & Computer Science (AREA)
  • Biomedical Technology (AREA)
  • Medical Informatics (AREA)
  • Acoustics & Sound (AREA)
  • Biophysics (AREA)
  • Pathology (AREA)
  • Otolaryngology (AREA)
  • Heart & Thoracic Surgery (AREA)
  • Multimedia (AREA)
  • Molecular Biology (AREA)
  • Surgery (AREA)
  • Animal Behavior & Ethology (AREA)
  • General Health & Medical Sciences (AREA)
  • Public Health (AREA)
  • Veterinary Medicine (AREA)
  • Measurement Of The Respiration, Hearing Ability, Form, And Blood Characteristics Of Living Organisms (AREA)

Abstract

Selon l'invention, on peut mesurer la capacité auditive d'une personne ou diagnostiquer une perte auditive chez cette personne à partir de la reconnaissance d'une pluralité d'échantillons sonores par ladite personne. La génération des échantillons sonores à reconnaître est déclenchée par la personne elle-même. En d'autres termes, la génération des divers échantillons sonores à des fréquences différentes ou pour des types de sons et des niveaux de pression sonore différents est déclenchée par la personne dont on souhaite déterminer la capacité auditive ou chez laquelle on souhaite déterminer une perte auditive. Les échantillons sonores sont générés in situ, c'est-à-dire dans une aide auditive portée par cette personne.
PCT/CH2006/000450 2006-08-22 2006-08-22 Audiometrie in situ auto-rythmee WO2007009287A2 (fr)

Priority Applications (2)

Application Number Priority Date Filing Date Title
PCT/CH2006/000450 WO2007009287A2 (fr) 2006-08-22 2006-08-22 Audiometrie in situ auto-rythmee
EP06775144A EP2053970A2 (fr) 2006-08-22 2006-08-22 Audiometrie in situ auto-rythmee

Applications Claiming Priority (1)

Application Number Priority Date Filing Date Title
PCT/CH2006/000450 WO2007009287A2 (fr) 2006-08-22 2006-08-22 Audiometrie in situ auto-rythmee

Publications (2)

Publication Number Publication Date
WO2007009287A2 true WO2007009287A2 (fr) 2007-01-25
WO2007009287A3 WO2007009287A3 (fr) 2007-09-13

Family

ID=37517297

Family Applications (1)

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PCT/CH2006/000450 WO2007009287A2 (fr) 2006-08-22 2006-08-22 Audiometrie in situ auto-rythmee

Country Status (2)

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EP (1) EP2053970A2 (fr)
WO (1) WO2007009287A2 (fr)

Cited By (2)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
WO2011152724A3 (fr) * 2010-06-04 2012-02-16 Exsilent Research B.V. Système et procédé auditifs ainsi que dispositif de type oreillette et dispositif de commande appliqué dans ce dernier
WO2014005622A1 (fr) 2012-07-03 2014-01-09 Phonak Ag Procédé et système pour régler des prothèses auditives, pour entraîner des individus à entendre avec lesdites prothèses auditives et/ou pour diagnostiquer des tests d'audition d'individus portant des prothèses auditives

Citations (2)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
US6322521B1 (en) 2000-01-24 2001-11-27 Audia Technology, Inc. Method and system for on-line hearing examination and correction
US20050059904A1 (en) 2003-09-17 2005-03-17 Josef Chalupper Device and method for determining a hearing range

Family Cites Families (2)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
NZ218051A (en) * 1986-10-23 1989-10-27 Wormald Int Audiometer with interactive graphics display to encourage responses from children
JP2004065734A (ja) * 2002-08-08 2004-03-04 National Institute Of Advanced Industrial & Technology モバイルオージオメータ

Patent Citations (2)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
US6322521B1 (en) 2000-01-24 2001-11-27 Audia Technology, Inc. Method and system for on-line hearing examination and correction
US20050059904A1 (en) 2003-09-17 2005-03-17 Josef Chalupper Device and method for determining a hearing range

Cited By (4)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
WO2011152724A3 (fr) * 2010-06-04 2012-02-16 Exsilent Research B.V. Système et procédé auditifs ainsi que dispositif de type oreillette et dispositif de commande appliqué dans ce dernier
US8675900B2 (en) 2010-06-04 2014-03-18 Exsilent Research B.V. Hearing system and method as well as ear-level device and control device applied therein
WO2014005622A1 (fr) 2012-07-03 2014-01-09 Phonak Ag Procédé et système pour régler des prothèses auditives, pour entraîner des individus à entendre avec lesdites prothèses auditives et/ou pour diagnostiquer des tests d'audition d'individus portant des prothèses auditives
US9445754B2 (en) 2012-07-03 2016-09-20 Sonova Ag Method and system for fitting hearing aids, for training individuals in hearing with hearing aids and/or for diagnostic hearing tests of individuals wearing hearing aids

Also Published As

Publication number Publication date
EP2053970A2 (fr) 2009-05-06
WO2007009287A3 (fr) 2007-09-13

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