What Do You All Think About Lobbying a Company to Create a 20 kHz Hearing Aid?

One of the largest mainstream hearing aids I have seen is programmable up to 12khz. Some people's tinnitus, however, can be above 12khz. If there is hearing loss above 12khz and a hearing aid is capable of correcting it, it can lessen or eliminate the noticeability of tinnitus. I don't know if it is possible to get all the way to 20khz but 16khz would be pretty nice.

From what I understand the main reason that hearing aids only go up to 6 to 8khz is because they are engineered to improve the understanding of human voices. However, if hearing aid could be manufactured above 8khz more ambient noises could "mask" more T for those with tinnitus higher than 8khz.

I speak from personal experience as I tried out a 12khz pair which corrected more hearing loss. I can tell you that it definitely helped in reducing the noticeability of my tinnitus. Unfortunately, at the time I could not afford them since they were "flagship" hearing aids. My idea is that if enough people can create a market for a device, then a manufacturer may be willing to make it. What do you all think? By the way, special hearing tests are needed to test above the regular 8khz limit.

 

Not sure why do you need hearing aids above 12k .. hearing aids do not correct tinnitus .. or lessen it .. it is a myth imho .. and there are nearly no sounds about 12k that is necessary for your daily life ..

If you spend about 1000$+ you can get custom in ear headphones that go pretty high, get a pair of custom Noble Kaiser, and play it all day it is only about 1600$ and you see if it helps your sound, I highly doubt it.

 

Hearing aids can lessen how much certain people notice tinnitus. With some people, if they wear hearing aids they can no longer hear their tinnitus.

 

Did you ever found a scientific paper about that?

 

Come to think of it, I haven't seen any peer reviewed paper on the subject.

Hearing tests in my opinion are somewhat flawed in testing above 15kHz. The ability of the testing headphones to produce those frequencies diminishes quickly as you head towards 20 kHz. As does human hearing.

Next time I go for a hearing test I'm going to ask for frequency response charts on the equipment.

 

@Wojtek Kalka
What @JasonP means is that having hearing aids improves hearing ability, thus more external sound to mask the tinnitus (not to get rid of it, just they notice it less).
So, if hearing aids were to amplify hearing in the higher pitch range, then the theory holds that more external sound will be able to be heard at these frequencies meaning more tinnitus masking.

 

First search result with "hearing aids tinnitus" in pubmed:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28452715

 

Nice search @GregCA ,

Also, regarding the potential benefit of hearing aids, I did a video addressing this, with some references in the Description section:

Can Hearing Aids Help Your Tinnitus?

 

@Samantha R ok I agree with that, read some papers..if you have hearing loss a device that improves your hearing helps with external sound and masking the sound, but above 12k+ is a really really high area of tones, everything there will be highly experimental and surely the devices will be quite expensive

 

In fact there is a research paper on the benefit of hearing aids, specifically with LOFT technology, on the suppression of tinnitus:

↓ Full text
Long-term tinnitus suppression with linear octave frequency transposition hearing AIDS.
Peltier E, et al. PLoS One. 2012.
Show full citation
Abstract
Over the last three years of hearing aid dispensing, it was observed that among 74 subjects fitted with a linear octave frequency transposition (LOFT) hearing aid, 60 reported partial or complete tinnitus suppression during day and night, an effect still lasting after several months or years of daily use. We report in more details on 38 subjects from whom we obtained quantified measures of tinnitus suppression through visual analog scaling and several additional psychoacoustic and audiometric measures. The long-term suppression seems independent of subject age, and of duration and subjective localization of tinnitus. A small but significant correlation was found with audiogram losses but not with high frequency loss slope. Long-term tinnitus suppression was observed for different etiologies, but with a low success rate for sudden deafness. It should be noted that a majority of subjects (23) had a history of noise exposure. Tinnitus suppression started after a few days of LOFT hearing aid use and reached a maximum after a few weeks of daily use. For nine subjects different amounts of frequency shifting were tried and found more or less successful for long-term tinnitus suppression, no correlation was found with tinnitus pitch. When the use of the LOFT hearing aid was stopped tinnitus reappeared within a day, and after re-using the LOFT aid it disappeared again within a day. For about one third of the 38 subjects a classical amplification or a non linear frequency compression aid was also tried, and no such tinnitus suppression was observed. Besides improvements in audiometric sensitivity to high frequencies and in speech discrimination scores, LOFT can be considered as a remarkable opportunity to suppress tinnitus over a long time scale. From a pathophysiological viewpoint these observations seem to fit with a possible re-attribution of activity to previously deprived cerebral areas corresponding to high frequency coding.

PMID
23284815 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
PMCID
PMC3527381
Full text
Free PMC article
Full text at journal site
Erratum in

• PLoS One. 2013;8(1). doi:10.1371/annotation/6d740ff6-82f0-4f33-a3e2-b0c9092c9baf.

 

Thank you, So which devices support these so I can test it myself . Anything you can recommend?

 

I have no experience with specific brands. However, the research paper I quoted was originally posted in a thread by @erik back in 2013. At least one member suggested Widex hearing aids. However, I believe the technology is incorporated into varying brands. It's a matter of investigating which of the hearing aid companies have models with LOFT technology. Since 2013, perhaps a few companies may now offer it in their devices. Whilst I have no expertise in this issue, based on the research paper, it's possible that tinnitus may be alleviated by an aid, as long as the aid is able to amplify or transpose a specific tinnitus frequency. Therefore, a person suffering a tinnitus frequency of 11.5 kHz, may find benefit in an aid that can amplify up to 12khz. Signia manufacture a new range with this capability. The original Tinnitus Talk thread is below:

Study: 81% of Test Subjects Benefit from New Long-Term Tinnitus Suppression Hearing Aid

 

Go lobby for funds for inner ear regeneration instead of hearing aids..

 

Hmm afaik some inner ear regeneration companies have 10-100 mil usd funding ... not much I can contribute there

 

Hearing aids are more likely to have issues with feedback at higher Hz. Also almost no one has tinnitus frequencies above 12khz or needs to hear sounds above 12khz so with a small market it makes sense that there isn't one but it would be nice if there was a hearing aid out there.

 

Very interesting idea for those of us with no detectable hearing loss - doubt hearing regeneration would help in the immediate future those with very little gearing loss.

 

I don't know if these are the type of hearing aids in the study but look into the Signia Primax 7px. Keep in mind you will need an extended audiogram to show the hearing aid specialist how it needs to be programmed.

 

These may indeed be helpful since their range extends to 12khz. A knowledgable opinion is required. They are also not a cheap item. The aids in the study however, incorporated LOFT technology, Linear Octave Frequency Transposition. This tech, which has been around for some time now, appears to take higher frequencies, susceptible to feedback or perhaps beyond a person's ability to hear and lowers them to a hearable level. It would take say, a bird's tweet and lower its frequency. The overall effect appears to have some influence on certain folk's tinnitus awareness and intensity.

 

That is very interesting. Do you know of any hearing aids that have LOFT?

 

I believe the Widex brand first commercialised LOFT technology. Other companies also have devices with octave lowering capabilities, but may have different names for it. There is a previous thread on TT about this subject:

https://www.tinnitustalk.com/thread...ng-term-tinnitus-suppression-hearing-aid.894/

 

Better than a papper, a guy who had T for 1.5 years and it vanished after starting to use hearing aid

Total Tinnitus Remission: Patient #6

 

Have you done a 250Hz - 20kHz hearing test?

 

Not noise trauma related tinnitus ... this is what my interest is ...

 

Yeah me too, my T is noise induced too, but I see all T's the same, a problem from sensory deprivation.

 

Definitely not the same in my humble opinion, and if you google the sounds they vary sooo much mine are three to four high frequencies around 35-50db depends on it's mood ... I found a way to silence it for 2-3 min, with sweep from 2000-6000hz in 20 sec .. then I can have a 3 min with a 15-20db level before it goes up again .. I use it sometimes when I need to relax better ....

and tried today 1000$ headphones with a sweep I could hear to 9k properly to 11.5k less, 12.5khz+ nothing ... most cheap headphones go down at 7-8k already

 

@Kratos ayyy how's your upcoming game looking so far?

 

No idea, never played them, this is not my real nickname (I was ashamed to use my real one when I registered ). I have used the same nickname for 19 years but not this one.

 

This is a great idea! What was the brand of this 12 kHz pair you tried out which corrected more hearing loss?

 

I trialed a pair of £4500 oticon aids which were up to 12khz. Zero improvement in my T and the eeeeeee just rose above all the masking sounds from them. Disappointing. But worth a free punt.

 

It was a Signia 7nx, however, when I later looked at one of the frequency amplification graphs, it didn't seem to go to 12 kHz even though the audiologist programmed it for that. I called up Signa tech support and talked to them about it, and their answer made no sense to me. I'm not sure what the deal is.