Question
What is BrainHearing, and why is it our guiding star at Oticon Medical?
Answer
BrainHearing is a fundamental understanding of how hearing works and how the brain makes sense of sound. Listening and understanding happens in the brain, and it is the most important part of hearing. It is important to provide the brain with a complete, natural sound picture. A nice broad bandwidth, from the low pitches to the high frequencies. To us at Oticon Medical, we focus on reducing the extra listening effort the brain expends to compensate for hearing loss. That is why we feel that direct bone conduction is the best way to vibrate the skull, to transmit sound directly to the inner ears, and ultimately to the brain. BrainHearing is about making listening easier by providing the brain with the best, most natural sound possible. Oticon Medical makes it a priority to not alter the signal by reducing what comes in. The Ponto 3 SuperPower will never overamplify. This processor will allow more sound to come in the natural way.
Our brains need as much information as possible, ideally from both ears, to orient based on the sound environment and to separate relevant sounds from competing noise. It's harder to make sense of what is being heard with a hearing loss. Hearing loss can have a negative effect on other processing capabilities and activities. These include language learning, completing tasks, and following directions. Children are performing these tasks day in and day out whether it's inside or outside of the classroom. Hearing loss can also have a negative effect on our ability to engage in conversation and memory.
This Ask the Expert is an excerpt from the CE Course, Unilateral Hearing Loss: Advocating for Children through Early Intervention Services and in the Classroom.
