Automated inner ear diagnoses
AssigneeCochlear Limited
InventorsJohn Michael Heasman, Peter Gibson, Luke Campbell, Stephen O'Leary
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
An expert diagnosis system integrated in a hearing prosthesis system is configured to diagnosis, grade, and remediate inner ear crises. In particular, the expert diagnosis system analyzes combinations of in-situ measured inner ear potentials, obtained in response to electrical and/or acoustic stimulation, in order to identify crisis signatures and to correlate those crisis signatures to clinical symptoms of a specific type and cause of an inner ear crises (i.e., automatically diagnosis the inner ear crisis). The expert system is further configured to grade the severity of the identified clinical symptoms and initiate some form of remedial action to address the identified inner ear crisis.
Claims24
A method executed by a hearing prosthesis system, comprising:
- obtaining, at the hearing prosthesis system, a plurality of inner ear potentials associated with an inner ear of a recipient of the hearing prosthesis system;
- based on the plurality of inner ear potentials, automatically identifying, with the hearing prosthesis system, an inner ear crisis indicative of a post-implantation change in health or function of the inner ear of the recipient;
- determining a type of the of the inner ear crisis;
- determining an underlying cause of the inner ear crisis;
- and
- automatically performing one or more remedial actions at the hearing prosthesis system to address the inner ear crisis,
- wherein the one or more remedial actions are selected at least in part based on the type and underlying cause of the inner ear crisis.
A hearing prosthesis system, comprising:
- an intra-cochlear stimulating assembly configured to be implanted in a recipient, wherein the intra-cochlear stimulating assembly comprises a plurality of electrodes;
- and
- one or more processors configured to:
- identify at least one crisis signature from one or more inner ear potentials obtained via the plurality of electrodes,
- correlate the at least one crisis signature to clinical symptoms of a specific type and cause of an inner ear crisis indicative of a post-implantation change in health or function of the inner ear, and
- based on the specific type and cause of the inner ear crisis, adjust operation of the hearing prosthesis to remediate the inner ear crisis.
A hearing prosthesis system, comprising:
- one or more electrodes configured to be implanted in a recipient and to obtain one or more inner ear potentials at a cochlea of a recipient in response to one or more or more acoustic or electrical stimulation signals;
- and
- an expert diagnosis system configured to:
- receive inner ear potentials obtained by the one or more electrodes configured;
- execute a real-time pattern matching process that analyzes various combinations of the inner ear potentials with respect to a database of known relationships between potentials and clinical symptoms to identify:
- an inner ear crisis associated with a change in health or function of the cochlea of the recipient, type of the of the inner ear crisis, and an underlying cause of the inner ear crisis;
- and
- automatically perform, based on the type of the of the inner ear crisis and the underlying cause of the of the inner ear crisis, one or more remedial actions to address the inner ear crisis.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.