Future Directions for Hearing Aid Development

Hearing aids will continue to be acoustic, customizable, wearable, battery-operated, and regulated medical devices. Future technology and research will improve how these requirements are met and add entirely new functions. Microphones, loudspeakers, digital signal processors, and batteries will continue to shrink in size to enhance existing functionality and allow new functionality with new forms of signal processing to optimize speech understanding, enhance spatial hearing, allow more accurate sound environment detection and classification to control hearing aid settings, implement self-calibration, and expand wireless connectivity to other devices and sensors. There also is potential to provide new signals for tinnitus treatment and delivery of pharmaceuticals to enhance cochlear hair cell and neural regeneration. Increased knowledge and understanding of the impaired auditory system and effective technology development will lead to greater benefit of hearing aids in the future.

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