Abstract
Implantable middle ear hearing devices (IMEHDs) have been developed as a new technology to overcome the limitations of conventional hearing aids. The piezoelectric cantilever transducers currently used in the IMEHDs have the advantages of low power consumption and ease of fabrication, but generate less high-frequency output. To address this problem, we proposed and designed a new piezoelectric transducer based on a piezoelectric stack for the IMEHD. This new transducer, attached to the incus body with a coupling rod, stimulates the ossicular chain in response to the expansion-and-contraction of its piezoelectric stack. To test its feasibility for hearing loss compensation, a bench testing of the transducer prototype and a temporal bone experiment were conducted, respectively. Bench testing results showed that the new transducer did have a broad frequency bandwidth. Besides, the transducer was found to have a low total harmonic distortion (<0.75%) in all frequencies, and small release time (1 ms). The temporal bone experiment further proved that the transducer has the capability to produce sufficient vibrations to compensate for severe sensorineural hearing loss, especially at high frequencies. This property benefits the treatment of the most common sloping high-frequency sensorineural hearing loss. To produce a 100 dB SPL equivalent sound pressure at 1 kHz, its power consumption is 0.49 mW, which is low enough for the transducer to be utilized in the IMEHD.
Highlights
Hearing loss is a major health problem affecting a very large portion of the general population and has a very wide range of etiologies [1]
We proposed and designed a new piezoelectric transducer for the incus-body driving-type implantable middle ear hearing device, which has the benefits of minor damage to the ossicular chain and less side effect on patients’ high-frequency residual hearing
The bench testing demonstrated that the transducer’s prototype has a wide bandwidth, short release time, and low distortion. It has a power consumption of 2.19 μW per volt of excitation at 1 kHz, which is reasonable for implantable middle ear hearing device
Summary
Hearing loss is a major health problem affecting a very large portion of the general population and has a very wide range of etiologies [1]. 31% of individuals between the ages of 60 and and 63.1% of those aged years and older are hearing impaired [2]. 360 million people worldwide have hearing loss. With the development of ear microsurgical techniques, most of the conductive hearing loss can benefit from surgical interventions. There is still a lack of effective treatments for sensorineural hearing loss. The majority of these hearing-impaired individuals can only turn to conventional acoustic hearing aids that amplify sounds to compensate for the decrease in hearing
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