WO2023193686A1

WO2023193686A1 - Monitoring method and apparatus for hearing assistance device

Info

Publication number: WO2023193686A1
Application number: PCT/CN2023/085988
Authority: WO
Inventors: 陆丛希; 周昊帅; 许良宗; 李林锴; 袁宇帆; 孙鸿程
Original assignee: 上海又为智能科技有限公司
Priority date: 2022-04-06
Filing date: 2023-04-03
Publication date: 2023-10-12
Also published as: CN116939458A

Abstract

The present application discloses a monitoring method for a hearing assistance device, the hearing assistance device having a configurable audio signal enhancement parameter. The monitoring method comprises: monitoring a hearing response state of a user wearing the hearing assistance device; and recording information indicating that the hearing response state is abnormal; and receiving a parameter adjustment instruction to update and configure the audio signal enhancement parameter of the hearing assistance device, wherein the parameter adjustment instruction is generated at least on the basis of the information indicating that the hearing response state is abnormal.

Description

Monitoring methods and devices for hearing aids

Technical field

The present application relates to the field of hearing aid equipment, and more specifically, to a monitoring method and device for hearing aid equipment.

Background technique

Hearing assistive devices are widely used in hearing compensation for hearing-impaired patients. They can amplify the sounds that hearing-impaired patients cannot hear and reuse their residual hearing, so that patients can perceive sounds normally and reduce or avoid the impact of hearing impairment on their lives. Impact.

Generally speaking, since the living environment, physical condition, and especially the hearing condition of hearing-impaired patients may change, long-term tracking of the user's use of the device is required. Once the user's daily use environment changes, or the user's own hearing condition changes (for example, the hearing loss becomes serious), it may become difficult to use unadjusted hearing aids in daily communication. At this time, hearing aids are needed. The teacher helps adjust the parameters of hearing aids. Usually users will go to offline stores for equipment deployment after making an appointment, or perform remote deployment online. During the deployment process, audiologists usually conduct some ear canal or hearing tests on the user, and more importantly, ask about the daily use environment. However, it is often difficult for users to accurately describe the past usage environment, which will affect the results of adjusting parameters of hearing aid devices.

Therefore, it is necessary to provide an improved hearing assistive device to solve the problems existing in the existing technology.

Contents of the invention

An object of the present application is to provide a method and device capable of monitoring the usage of hearing aid equipment.

In one aspect of the present application, a monitoring method for a hearing assistive device having configurable audio signal enhancement parameters is provided, the method comprising: monitoring a user wearing the hearing assistive device. a hearing response state; recording information indicating an abnormality in the hearing response state; and receiving a parameter adjustment instruction to Update and configure the audio signal enhancement parameters of the hearing aid device; wherein the parameter adjustment instruction is generated based on at least the information indicating an abnormality in the hearing response state.

In some embodiments, the step of recording information indicating that the hearing response state is abnormal further includes: recording the number of times indicating that the hearing response state is abnormal.

In some embodiments, the method further includes: generating and sending a request for adjusting audio signal enhancement parameters of the hearing assistive device after the number of abnormal occurrences of the hearing response state exceeds a predetermined threshold.

In some embodiments, the step of monitoring the hearing response state of the user wearing the hearing assistive device further includes: monitoring the hearing response state of the user through one or more sensors; wherein the one or more sensors A sensor is provided on the hearing assistive device, or on an external electronic device communicatively coupled to the hearing assistive device.

In some embodiments, monitoring the user's hearing response status through one or more sensors further includes: collecting the characteristic voice uttered by the user through a microphone; collecting the characteristic posture of the user through a motion sensor; collecting through an image sensor The user's characteristic expression; or the user's characteristic neural signal is collected through a neural signal sensor.

In some embodiments, the step of monitoring the user's hearing response state through one or more sensors further includes: monitoring the user's hearing response state through a variety of sensors; and monitoring the monitored hearing response state Perform data processing and generate information indicating an abnormality in the hearing response state.

In some embodiments, the data processing includes statistical analysis.

In some embodiments, the step of recording information indicating that the hearing response state is abnormal further includes: recording the environmental sound information of the user when the hearing response state is abnormal; wherein the parameter adjustment instruction It is generated based on the information indicating that the hearing response state is abnormal and the environmental sound information of the user when the hearing response state is abnormal.

In some embodiments, the step of recording information indicating that the hearing response state is abnormal further includes: performing signal processing on the recorded environmental sound information of the user when the hearing response state is abnormal.

In some embodiments, the signal processing includes: identifying a scene corresponding to the environmental sound information; or generating a spectrum corresponding to the environmental sound information.

In another aspect of the present application, a monitoring device for a hearing assistive device having configurable audio signal enhancement parameters is also provided. The monitoring device includes: a sensing module coupled to The hearing aid device, or being loaded on the hearing aid device, is used to monitor the hearing response state of the user wearing the hearing aid device; a control module is coupled to the sensing module and is used to record the indication. Information indicating that the hearing response state is abnormal, and receiving a parameter adjustment instruction to update and configure the audio signal enhancement parameters of the hearing aid device; wherein the parameter adjustment instruction is based at least on the indication that the hearing response state is abnormal. information generated.

The above is an overview of the present application, and there may be situations where simplifications, generalizations, and details are omitted. Therefore, those skilled in the art should realize that this part is only illustrative and is not intended to limit the scope of the present application in any way. This Summary is neither intended to identify key features or essential features of the claimed subject matter, nor is it intended to be used as an aid in determining the scope of the claimed subject matter.

Description of the drawings

The above and other features of the present application will be more fully understood from the following description and appended claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings. It will be understood that these drawings only depict several embodiments of the present application and therefore should not be considered as limiting the scope of the present application. By using the accompanying drawings, the contents of this application will be explained more clearly and in detail.

Figure 1 shows a flow chart of a monitoring method for a hearing assistive device according to one embodiment of the present application;

Figure 2 shows a hearing aid device and an external electronic device on the user side according to one embodiment of the present application.

Detailed ways

In the following detailed description, reference is made to the accompanying drawings, which form a part hereof. In the drawings, similar symbols typically identify similar components, unless context dictates otherwise. The illustrative embodiments described in the detailed description, drawings, and claims are not intended to be limiting. Other embodiments may be utilized, and other changes may be made, without departing from the spirit or scope of the subject matter of this application. It will be understood that various configurations, substitutions, combinations, and designs of various aspects of the present application generally described in the present application and illustrated in the accompanying drawings are possible, and all of these are expressly constitutive of the present application. part.

The inventor of this application found that for patients with hearing impairment, if the auxiliary hearing provided by the hearing aid device cannot compensate for their hearing loss, for example, the gain provided is low, the patient may not be able to hear certain sounds clearly. At this time, the patient Usually exhibits some abnormal reaction in their body. For example, after the patient fails to hear the other party's words clearly, he may ask the other party to repeat it again: "What are you talking about?" or "Huh?" etc. Based on this discovery, the inventor of the present application conceived the following invention: using, for example, a hearing aid device to monitor the user's hearing response state during daily use, and recording information related to these hearing response states. In this way, the audiologist can adjust the parameters of the hearing aid device based on the recorded information, which can be of great help in providing users with truly good assisted hearing, thereby helping to improve the experience of using the hearing aid device.

Based on the above concepts, this application provides a monitoring method and device for hearing assistive equipment, which can be implemented as software, hardware, firmware or a combination thereof, and integrated into existing hearing assistive equipment. For example, the monitoring method of the present application can be implemented as computer executable code and stored in the storage module of the hearing aid device. These codes can be called and executed by the control module (such as a processor) of the hearing aid device. When executed, One or more sensors in the hearing aid device or other external electronic device coupled to the hearing aid device may be invoked to cooperate to perform various steps of the monitoring method.

Figure 1 shows a flow chart of a monitoring method 100 for a hearing aid device according to an embodiment of the present application. It can be understood that the monitoring method 100 of the present application can be used for various hearing aids and implemented as a monitoring device coupled or loaded to the hearing aids. In some embodiments, the hearing aid device may be, for example, a hearing aid, an auxiliary hearing aid, a cochlear implant, etc. These devices may have certain signal sensing and data processing capabilities, thereby being able to perform the monitoring method of the present application. In other embodiments, the hearing aid device may be coupled to an external electronic device (such as a mobile phone) through wired or wireless communication, and the external electronic device may perform all or part of the steps of the monitoring method.

As shown in Figure 1, at step 101, the sound input device in the hearing aid device on the user side collects the sound in the environment where the user wearing the hearing aid device is located, that is, the sound that is expected to be amplified by the hearing aid device and provided to the user. These sounds can include speech as well as any other sound (such as car horns, birds chirping, machines roaring, music, etc.). For example, the sound input device may be a microphone, which may be coupled or loaded in a hearing aid, a hearing aid, a cochlear implant, or other hearing aid equipment. In this way, based on the collected environmental sounds, the sound input device generates corresponding audio input signals, and these audio input signals can then be provided to the hearing aid device as sound input to be processed.

In step 102, the hearing response state of the user wearing the hearing aid device is monitored through one or more sensors, and then in step 103, relevant information of the monitored hearing response state is processed, so that an indication of the hearing response can be generated and recorded. Information about abnormal status. It can be understood that in some embodiments, step 102 may be performed simultaneously with step 101. In some embodiments, information indicating an abnormality in the hearing response state may be recorded in the hearing aid. It can also be recorded on the external electronic device coupled to the hearing aid device (which is still an electronic device on the user side, such as a device carried by the user, or a device placed by the user in the office, home or other living places) superior. In some embodiments, this information can also be sent substantially instantaneously to a remote device, such as a mobile phone, computer or other similar device used by the audiologist, or can be sent to and stored in a remote server, which can proactively report to the audiologist. The information can be forwarded to the audiologist's device or can be sent to the audiologist's device upon request.

The hearing response state reflects the user's response state to the sound output by the hearing assistive device, where the output sound may be the sound generated after the sound input collected in step 101 is processed by the hearing assistive device. As mentioned above, in real life, depending on personal habits, users can express their response to sounds in various ways. For example, if the amplitude of the sound output by the hearing aid device is generally normal and the user can hear it, then the user's physical condition will remain generally stable and will not show a special response state; however, if the amplitude of the sound output by the hearing aid device is generally normal On the low side, the user may not be able to hear the sound output under certain circumstances, and the user's body may have a habitual reaction, which may be voice, certain body movements, expressions, or even Certain neural signals in the brain.

Depending on how the hearing response status is monitored, the sensor used in step 102 may include one or more of a motion sensor, an image sensor, a neural signal sensor, or a microphone. In some embodiments, the abnormal hearing response state can be that the body or head is tilted forward, or tilted in the direction of a specific sound source; accordingly, the hearing aid device can detect motion sensors loaded on it or other electronic devices worn by the user. motion sensors on the device to monitor the user's body posture. For example, the motion sensor can be a three-axis acceleration sensor. When the user wears the hearing aid device, the three-axis acceleration sensor provided on the hearing aid device can detect the offset values of the user's head on three orthogonal coordinate axes. . After receiving the offset data, the hearing aid device can analyze it and calculate the angle between the X-axis and the horizontal plane, the angle between the Y-axis and the horizontal plane, and the angle between the Z-axis and the gravity vector, thereby determining the user's posture. When the tilt angle of the human head exceeds the preset tilt threshold and remains above the tilt threshold for more than a certain preset time, the user's posture is determined to be head tilted forward, which corresponds to an abnormal hearing response state.

In another embodiment, the hearing aid device may be coupled to an external electronic device, such as VR glasses or similar device, with an image sensor facing the user's face disposed thereon, so that the user's facial expressions may be monitored through the image sensor. . For example, the image sensor can be a camera mounted on the VR glasses facing the user's face, which can establish a communication connection with the hearing aid device, for example, through Bluetooth communication, and transmit the captured image signal to the hearing aid device coupled thereto. A control module (such as a processor or a microcontroller), or the image signal of the facial expression is processed directly in a local controller of the external electronic device. After receiving the image signal, the hearing aid device can It performs further processing, such as comparing the acquired facial image with the characteristic expressions preset in the system. Among them, the characteristic expression can be preset, for example, it can be expressions expressing doubts such as frowning and wide eyes. Depending on the actual situation, multiple (for example, 2-3) facial expressions can be preset: if the comparison results are that the collected facial expressions are similar to at least one characteristic expression, the user's hearing response state is determined to be abnormal; if If the comparison results are not similar, it is determined that the user's hearing response status is normal.

In yet another embodiment, the hearing aid or the external electronic device coupled to it may be equipped with a neural signal sensor (such as a brain-computer interface device), which may be collected or detected by similar EEG (electroencephalogram) detection mechanisms and components. Characteristic neural signals of users. For example, the user's auditory attention signal can be detected through EEG and transmitted to the hearing aid device. After detecting a characteristic neural signal such as a sudden loss of auditory attention of the user (the characteristic neural signal can be a preset signal pattern), the hearing aid device determines that the user cannot hear the sound clearly, that is, the hearing response state is abnormal.

In yet another embodiment, since the hearing aid device can perform sound input through a microphone, it can simultaneously collect the user's voice and recognize certain characteristic speech sounds. For example, the hearing aid device can compare the speech signal in the sound input with the preset characteristic speech, where the characteristic speech can be "what did you say?", "I didn't hear it clearly", "pardon", "say that again" , "can you repeat", etc.: If it is found that the sound input contains a certain characteristic voice, it is determined that the user's hearing response state is abnormal. Those skilled in the art can understand that, depending on the user's voice habits, the characteristic voice described here may also be other voices that indicate that the user did not hear clearly.

It can be understood that the function of the sensor in step 102 is to monitor the user's hearing response state and transmit corresponding signals or data to the control module of the hearing aid device or external electronic device for processing. However, the types of sensors should include but are not limited to the above four sensors, and those skilled in the art can select different sensors according to actual conditions.

The foregoing embodiments take the sensor monitoring one type of hearing response state parameter as an example for explanation. In some preferred embodiments, multiple sensors can be used to simultaneously monitor parameters of multiple types of hearing response states, and jointly determine the user's hearing response state based on them. This comprehensive monitoring method of multiple types of parameters can improve the accuracy of hearing response status monitoring results. For example, the sensors of the hearing aid device or the external electronic device coupled to it can simultaneously monitor the user's characteristic voice, characteristic gestures, characteristic expressions and/or characteristic neural signals, and perform data analysis on these data. For example, these data (such as Occurrence frequency) is weighted and summed (the weight can be preset). If the result of the weighted summation exceeds the preset threshold, it can be determined that the user's hearing response state is abnormal. In addition, preferably, since speech can usually reflect abnormalities in the hearing response state more directly, the speech signal can be set to a higher priority, while other signals can be set to a lower priority.

In some embodiments, data analysis of the aforementioned multiple signals can be implemented based on deep learning models or statistical models. For deep learning models, it can be obtained by learning data from users’ past habits. For example, when the characteristic speech is recognized and the user's hearing response state is determined to be head turning and forward leaning, the weight of the head turning and forward leaning state in determining the abnormality of the user's hearing response state will be increased accordingly, while the weight of other states will be reduced accordingly. Or when the characteristic voice is recognized and the user's facial expression is detected to be confused, the weight of the facial expression in determining the abnormality of the user's hearing response state will be increased accordingly, and the weight of other states will be reduced accordingly. And so on.

In addition, it should be noted that since data processing, especially the step of generating information indicating an abnormality in the hearing response state, can be performed in the control module of the hearing aid device or in the control module of the external electronic device, therefore, Depending on the location of the sensor, the signal of the hearing response status monitored by the sensor can be processed directly by the control module of the same device and only the information indicating an abnormality in the hearing response status is sent to the hearing aid device, or it can also be sent to another device. device and processed by its control module.

The hearing aid device may be provided with a counter (for example, implemented through a software program), which is used to count abnormalities in the hearing response state. Referring to Figure 1, in step 104, the hearing aid device may count abnormalities in the hearing response state: if it is determined that the user's hearing response state is abnormal, the number of times the counter is increased by one. It can be understood that as the time the user uses the hearing aid device increases, the number of abnormal hearing response states may also increase, which may be indicated by the count value of the counter. Correspondingly, in step 105, the count value of the abnormal state can be compared with a predetermined threshold: if the number of abnormal hearing response states exceeds the predetermined threshold, it can be considered that the hearing assistive device cannot meet the user's hearing compensation needs, so In step 106, a request for adjusting audio signal enhancement parameters of the hearing assistive device is generated and sent by the hearing assistive device. The predetermined threshold may be a value indicating an abnormal hearing response within a certain period of time, which may be determined based on experience or historical usage data. For example, the predetermined threshold may be that the number of times an abnormal hearing response state occurs exceeds 20 times within 1 month.

Abnormal status counts of the hearing response status or results of the count exceeding a predetermined threshold can be sent to the device at the audiologist via various suitable communication means. For example, the hearing aid device can send the request to a mobile phone or similar device to which it is coupled, so that the mobile phone can instantly send the request to a device at a remote audiologist over a wireless communication network, or to a remote server and be forwarded by the server. the request. As another example, the hearing assistive device may have a charging base or similar base, which may be coupled to a remote server via a wired or wireless network (e.g., WiFi) so that the hearing assistive device can be charged when needed, which is typically every day or every few days. The request is sent to the remote server through the base, and then the remote server forwards it to the audiologist's device. In some embodiments, after it is determined that the count value of the counter reaches the threshold in step 105, in addition to indicating that the abnormal status count is sent in step 106 or the abnormal status count exceeds the threshold In addition to giving the results to the audiologist's device, the counter on the hearing aid device can also be instructed to clear to prepare for a new round of counting. It can be understood that those skilled in the art can adjust the foregoing threshold according to actual conditions, and this application does not limit this. In some embodiments, different thresholds can be set according to the user's personal habits, and this user's personal habits can be determined through machine learning or statistical analysis.

As mentioned above, in some cases, the user's daily use environment is very important for the adjustment of hearing aids. If the audiologist can accurately grasp the user's daily use environment, especially the environmental sounds of the user when abnormal hearing response status occurs, then The audiologist can accurately adjust the audio signal enhancement parameters of the user's hearing aid device according to the corresponding environmental conditions. Correspondingly, in some embodiments, the monitoring method further includes recording environmental sound signals, as shown in step 110 . Specifically, at step 103, the hearing aid device may instruct to record the environmental sound information of the user when it is determined that the user's hearing response state is abnormal. For example, when it is determined that the user's hearing response status is abnormal, the hearing aid device can instruct its control module to intercept a segment of the environmental audio input signal collected by the microphone and store it in a storage device. The intercepted audio signal can be used to determine the user's hearing response. Audio signals within a period of time before the status abnormality occurs, such as sounds within 1 second, within 2 seconds, within 5 seconds, or environmental sound information within other time periods. Those skilled in the art can set the time for audio interception according to actual needs, and this application has no limitation on this. Accordingly, in some embodiments, in step 106, the generated ambient sound information may be sent to a device at the audiologist or other remote device for processing by the device along with the count of abnormal conditions. In other embodiments, the generated environmental sound information may be signal-processed by the hearing aid device or other external electronic devices coupled thereto, and then sent to the remote device.

In some embodiments, signal processing of environmental sound information may include generating a frequency spectrum corresponding to the environmental sound information, or identifying a scene corresponding to the environmental sound information. For example, a spectrum library can be set for common scenes in life, including spectrums of various common scenes in life, such as traffic, construction sites, concerts, etc. In this way, the environmental sound information collected in real time can be time-frequency transformed, from the time domain to the frequency domain, to obtain the audio signal in the frequency domain. Preferably, the audio signal in the frequency domain can be further converted from a linear spectrum to a Mel nonlinear spectrum, or the Mel nonlinear spectrum can be further logarithmically processed to extract feature information in the spectrum. The characteristic information in these spectra can reflect the characteristics of the scene and therefore can be used for scene recognition. In some embodiments, the scene corresponding to the environmental sound information can be determined by comparing the spectrum of the environmental sound information with a preset scene spectrum library. Similarly, the spectrum of the collected audio signal can also be compared with the spectrum pre-stored in the spectrum library to determine the overlap rate between the spectrum of the collected audio signal and each preset spectrum: when the overlap rate with a certain preset spectrum is high At a preset overlap rate, it can be determined that the scene corresponding to the preset spectrum is the scene in which the audio signal is collected.

Optionally, after the device at the server or the audiologist receives the relevant information, it can return an indication of successful reception, so that the hearing aid device can respond to the instruction to clear the environmental sound information that has been stored therein.

It can be understood that although in the example shown in FIG. 1 , the information can be sent to the audiologist through wireless communication, in other embodiments, wireless communication may not be used. For example, a user can hand the hearing aid to the audiologist during their meeting, and the audiologist copies the required information directly from the hearing aid.

Next, in step 107, after the audiologist receives a prompt that the count of abnormal hearing response status exceeds the threshold, and/or the environmental sound information of the user when the hearing response status is abnormal, the audiologist can provide hearing assistance based on this information. The audio signal enhancement parameters of the device are adjusted, and corresponding parameter adjustment instructions are provided to the hearing aid device. In this way, the audio signal enhancement capabilities of the hearing aid device can be adjusted at least based on past hearing response abnormalities, which greatly improves the actual use of the hearing aid device. For example, if the number of abnormal hearing response states exceeds the threshold by 50%, the audio signal enhancement capability can be increased by 1dB, and if it exceeds the threshold by 100%, the audio signal enhancement capability can be increased by 2dB, and so on linearly or with a logarithmic function. For another example, if the environmental sound information recorded by monitoring includes a large number of low-frequency signal components, it may indicate that the user's hearing response ability to low-frequency signals is insufficient, and the low-frequency gain of the hearing aid device needs to be enhanced, without enhancing the mid-frequency or high-frequency gain.

It can be understood that the parameter adjustment of the above-mentioned hearing aid equipment is adjusted by the audiologist based on his or her experience. However, in some other embodiments, parameter adjustment based on information related to abnormal hearing response status can also be implemented by an automated algorithm, or That is, the audiologist’s experience is replaced by software. The automatic configuration of audio signal gain parameters can simplify the configuration process and further improve the user experience. Because the existing hearing provisioning process must rely on communication between the patient and the audiologist, it is difficult to automatically configure it by software.

Then, in step 108, the audiologist can use his device to send the parameter adjustment instruction to the hearing aid device; and in step 109, the hearing aid device can execute the parameter adjustment instruction to update and configure the audio signal enhancement parameters. In some embodiments, after receiving a new parameter adjustment instruction, the hearing aid device will also clear its internal cache (used to store environmental sound information) and clear the counter to zero to ensure that the data update cycle restarts after adjustment. Conduct a new round of monitoring on the use of hearing aids after parameter adjustments.

Figure 2 shows a hearing aid device and an external electronic device on the user side according to one embodiment of the present application, which can be used to perform the monitoring method described in Figure 1, for example.

As shown in Figure 2, the hearing aid device 200 may include a sound input module 202, which is used to collect the sound of the environment where the user is located as an audio input signal, and the audio input signal is amplified by the audio signal enhancement module 204 and is received through the The microphone 206 outputs and is played to the user of the hearing aid device 200 . The audio signal enhancement module 204 may be configurable, such as having configurable audio signal enhancement parameters. In this way, by adjusting the parameters, the amplification capability of the audio signal enhancement module 204 for the audio input signal can be adjusted. Hearing assistive device 200 may also include a controller 208 , which may have signal and data processing capabilities to control the operation of other modules of hearing assistive device 200 . In some embodiments, the hearing aid device 200 may have a motion sensor 210 that is used to monitor the user's motion and posture, and send relevant monitoring results to the control module 208 . The sound input module 202 and the motion sensor 210 are different types of sensing signals, which can be used to detect the user's hearing response state. The storage module 212 is used to store various data, including the environmental sound information described above in conjunction with the embodiment shown in FIG. 1 , or information on abnormal hearing response states (as a counter).

The hearing aid device 200 may also be integrated with a communication module 214, which may be a short-range communication module, such as a Bluetooth module, so that it can communicate with the short-range communication module 252 of another external electronic device 250 carried by the user to exchange data. Further, the external electronic device 250 may communicate with a remote server or device at the audiologist via a remote communication module 258 thereon. In other embodiments, the communication module 214 may also be a remote communication module, such as a mobile communication module, allowing the hearing aid device 200 to communicate directly with a remote server or device at the audiologist's location. In addition, as mentioned above, the external electronic device 250 can also be integrated with a sensing module, such as the image sensor 256. This sensing module can be called by the assistive hearing device 200 through the control module 254 of the external electronic device 200 to monitor other types of user's symptoms. facial expression. For more functions and steps of the hearing aid device 200 and the external electronic device 250, reference may be made to the description of the embodiment shown in FIG. 1, which will not be described again here.

It can be seen that based on the monitoring method of this application, the audiologist can accurately learn the user's usage environment and usage conditions from the hearing aid device. Therefore, the monitoring method of this application can effectively improve the accuracy of fitting and provide users with good hearing assistance. In particular, if a user experiences abnormal hearing response status too frequently when using a hearing aid device, the audiologist can learn about this situation in time and invite the user to bring the device for reconfiguration, which also improves the feasibility of early intervention.

Embodiments of the present invention may be implemented by hardware, software, or a combination of software and hardware. The hardware part can be implemented using dedicated logic; the software part can be stored in memory and executed by an appropriate instruction execution system, such as a microprocessor or specially designed hardware. Those of ordinary skill in the art will understand that the above-described apparatus and methods may be implemented using computer-executable instructions and/or included in processor control code, for example on a carrier medium such as a disk, CD or DVD-ROM, such as a read-only memory. Such code is provided on a programmable memory (firmware) or on a data carrier such as an optical or electronic signal carrier. The device and its modules of the present invention can be assembled by, for example, a very large scale Hardware circuit implementations such as circuits or gate arrays, semiconductors such as logic chips, transistors, etc., or programmable hardware devices such as field programmable gate arrays, programmable logic devices, etc., may also be implemented by various types of processors Software implementation can also be implemented by a combination of the above hardware circuit and software, such as firmware.

It should be noted that although monitoring methods and devices for hearing assistive devices are mentioned in the above detailed description, this division is only exemplary and not mandatory. In fact, according to embodiments of the present application, the features and functions of two or more modules described above may be embodied in one module. Conversely, the features and functions of a module described above can be further divided into being embodied by multiple modules.

Those of ordinary skill in the art can understand and implement other changes to the disclosed embodiments by studying the specification, disclosure and drawings, and appended claims. In the claims, the word "comprising" does not exclude other elements or steps, and the words "a" or "an" do not exclude the plural. In the actual application of this application, one part may perform the functions of multiple technical features cited in the claims. Any reference signs in the claims shall not be construed as limiting the scope.

Claims

A monitoring method for a hearing aid device having configurable audio signal enhancement parameters, characterized in that the method includes:

Monitor the hearing response status of the user wearing the hearing aid device;

recording information indicating an abnormality in the hearing response state; and

Receive a parameter adjustment instruction to update and configure audio signal enhancement parameters of the hearing aid device; wherein the parameter adjustment instruction is generated based at least on the information indicating an abnormality in the hearing response state.
The monitoring method according to claim 1, wherein the step of recording information indicating an abnormality in the hearing response state further includes:

The number of times indicating an abnormality in the hearing response state is recorded.
The monitoring method according to claim 1, characterized in that the method further includes:

After the number of abnormal occurrences of the hearing response state exceeds a predetermined threshold, a request for adjusting an audio signal enhancement parameter of the hearing aid device is generated and sent.
The monitoring method according to claim 1, wherein the step of monitoring the hearing response state of the user wearing the hearing aid device further includes:

The user's hearing response status is monitored through one or more sensors; wherein the one or more sensors are provided on the hearing aid device or are provided on a device communicatively coupled to the hearing aid device. on the device's external electronics.
The monitoring method according to claim 4, wherein monitoring the user's hearing response status through one or more sensors further includes:

Collect the characteristic voice uttered by the user through a microphone;

Collect the characteristic posture of the user through a motion sensor;

Collect the user's characteristic expression through an image sensor; or

The user's characteristic neural signals are collected through neural signal sensors.
The monitoring method according to claim 4, wherein the step of monitoring the user's hearing response state through one or more sensors further includes:

Monitor the user's hearing response status through a variety of sensors; and

Perform data processing on the monitored hearing response state, and generate information indicating an abnormality in the hearing response state.
The monitoring method according to claim 1, wherein the step of recording information indicating an abnormality in the hearing response state further includes:

Record the environmental sound information of the user when the hearing response state is abnormal;

Wherein, the parameter adjustment instruction is generated based on the information indicating that the hearing response state is abnormal and the environmental sound information of the user when the hearing response state is abnormal.
The monitoring method according to claim 7, wherein the step of recording information indicating an abnormality in the hearing response state further includes:

Perform signal processing on the recorded environmental sound information of the user when the hearing response state is abnormal.
The monitoring method according to claim 8, characterized in that the signal processing includes:

Identify the scene corresponding to the environmental sound information; or

Generate a frequency spectrum corresponding to the environmental sound information.
A monitoring device for hearing aid equipment with configurable audio signal enhancement parameters, characterized in that the monitoring device includes:

A sensing module, which is coupled to the hearing assistive device or is loaded on the hearing assistive device and used to monitor the hearing response state of the user wearing the hearing assistive device;

A control module coupled to the sensing module, configured to record information indicating an abnormality in the hearing response state, and to receive parameter adjustment instructions to update and configure the audio signal enhancement parameters of the hearing aid device; wherein , the parameter adjustment instruction is generated based on at least the information indicating an abnormality in the hearing response state. It's done.
The monitoring device according to claim 10, wherein the control module is further configured to record the number of times indicating that the hearing response state is abnormal, and after the number of times the hearing response state is abnormal exceeds a predetermined threshold, Generate and send a request for adjusting audio signal enhancement parameters of the hearing aid device.
The monitoring device according to claim 10, wherein the sensing module is one or more of the following group: a microphone, a motion sensor, an image sensor, or a neural signal sensor.
The monitoring device according to claim 10, wherein the control module is further configured to generate information indicating an abnormality in the hearing response state according to the monitored hearing response state of the user.
The monitoring device according to claim 10, wherein the control module is further configured to: record the environmental sound information of the user when the hearing response state is abnormal; wherein the parameter adjustment instruction is Generated based on the information indicating that the hearing response state is abnormal and the environmental sound information of the user when the hearing response state is abnormal.
The monitoring device according to claim 10, wherein the control module is further configured to perform signal processing on the environmental sound information of the user when the recorded hearing response state is abnormal.
The monitoring device according to claim 15, wherein the signal processing includes:

Identify the scene corresponding to the environmental sound information; or

Generate a frequency spectrum corresponding to the environmental sound information.