System for rehabilitation of a hearing disorder
AssigneeCochlear Limited
InventorsHans Leysieffer, Bernd Waldmann
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Abstract
A system for rehabilitation of a hearing disorder which comprises at least one acoustic sensor for picking up an acoustic signal and converting it into an electrical audio signal, an electronic signal processing unit for audio signal processing and amplification, an electrical power supply unit which supplies individual components of the system with current, and an actuator arrangement which is provided with one or more electroacoustic, electromechanical or purely electrical output-side actuators or any combination of these actuators for stimulation of damaged hearing, wherein the signal processing unit has a speech analysis and recognition module and a speech synthesis module.
Claims49
A system for rehabilitation of a recipient's hearing, comprising:
- at least one acoustic sensor configured to convert a sensed acoustical signal into an electrical audio signal;
- a fully implantable signal processing unit configured to process said audio signal, comprising:
- an adaptive speech analysis and recognition module configured to detect and extract prosodic features from said audio signal, and
- an adaptive speech synthesis module configured to convert said audio signal into an artificial speech signal based on said extracted prosodic features;
- said speech analysis and recognition module and said speech synthesis module each being re-programmable while said signal processing unit is implantable;
- and
- an actuator arrangement configured to provide output stimulation to one or more hearing structures of the recipient based on said artificial speech signal, comprising a flexible carrier member configured to be implanted in the cochlea of the recipient, and an array of actuators mounted in said flexible carrier member configured to stimulate the cochlea.
A system for rehabilitating a recipient's hearing, comprising:
- at least one acoustic sensor configured to convert a sensed acoustical signal into an electrical audio signal;
- a signal processing unit configured to process said audio signal, comprising:
- a speech analysis and recognition module configured to detect and extract prosodic features from said audio signal, and
- a speech synthesis module configured to convert said audio signal into an artificial speech signal based on said extracted prosodic features;
- an actuator arrangement configured to provide output stimulation to one or more hearing structures of the recipient based on said artificial speech signal, comprising a flexible carrier member configured to be implanted in the cochlea of the recipient, and an array of actuators mounted in said flexible carrier member configured to stimulate the cochlea;
- and
- wherein said signal processing unit is further configured to select processing of said audio signal without converting said audio signal into said artificial speech signal, and wherein said actuator arrangement is configured to provide output stimulation based on said processed audio signal.
A method for processing a sound in a fully implantable cochlear implant, comprising:
- converting a sensed acoustical signal into an electrical audio signal;
- processing said audio signal comprising:
- detecting an extracting prosodic features from said audio signal with a first dynamic module;
- and
- converting said audio signal into an artificial speech signal based on said extracted prosodic features at a second dynamic module;
- stimulating one or more hearing structures of a recipient based on said artificial speech signal with an actuator arrangement comprising a flexible carrier member configured to be implanted in the cochlea of the recipient, and an array of actuators mounted in said flexible carrier member configured to stimulate the cochlea;
- and
- allowing said first and second dynamic modules to optimize said processing.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.