Cochlea health monitoring
OwnerJohn Michael Heasman, Luke Campbell +3inventors
InventorsJohn Michael Heasman, Luke Campbell, Stephen O'Leary, Kerrie Plant, Kristien Johanna Maria Verhoeven
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Abstract
Presented herein are in-situ techniques for monitoring a recipient's cochlea health to proactively identify (i.e., predict) changes to the recipient's cochlea health outside of a clinical setting. The cochlea health monitoring techniques presented herein obtain one or more cochlea health biomarkers associated with a recipient's cochlea health, such the recipient's residual hearing, and analyze these biomarkers to predict that a cochlea health change is likely to occur.
Claims27
A method, comprising:
- obtaining, at a hearing prosthesis, one or more biomarkers each associated with a cochlea health of a recipient of the hearing prosthesis;
- analyzing, at the hearing prosthesis, the one or more biomarkers to identify one or more precursors of a change to the cochlea health;
- and
- in response to identification of at least one precursor of a change to the cochlea health, initiating one or more remedial actions at the hearing prosthesis.
A hearing prosthesis, comprising;
- a stimulating assembly configured to be implanted in a recipient, wherein the stimulating assembly comprises a plurality of stimulating contacts configured to deliver electrical stimulation signals to the recipient;
- and
- a processor configured to:
- predict, based on one or more cochlea health biomarkers, future residual hearing loss of the recipient's cochlea;
- and
- responsive to the prediction of the residual hearing loss, adjust operation of the hearing prosthesis to remediate the future residual hearing loss.
A hearing prosthesis method, comprising:
- obtaining one or more biomarkers each associated with residual hearing of a recipient of a hearing prosthesis;
- and
- employing the one or more biomarkers as real-time feedback for regulation of stimulation signals which originate from the hearing prosthesis to provide for the long-term preservation of the residual hearing.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.