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Source: http://www.4hearingloss.com/
Duke University audiologist Molly Justus looked like a recording-studio engineer as she adjusted a 16-band equalizer designed to improve the performance of Joan Ernst’s cochlear implant, a high-tech hearing device inside her ear.
Justus was aiming to make what Ernst heard through the computerized device closely resemble the nuanced notes that used to come through her trained musician’s ears. A retired teacher and choir director, Ernst is one of an estimated 36 million Americans with hearing loss, but one of only about 38,000 who have received cochlear implants.
Using cochlear implants, people like Ernst have for more than two decades been able to receive sound through the stimulation of nerves in the inner ear. In recent years, manufacturers and academics have joined to make the devices ever more sophisticated at reproducing the complexities of natural hearing.
