Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Dental hearing aid approved in Europe

From Engadget. It was approved by the FDA in the USA in January.

We've already seen the principle of bone conduction be applied to headphones, but Sonitus Medical is taking the idea to a whole new level with its SoundBite dental hearing aid, which has just received the necessary European CE Mark certification (it already has FDA approval).

As you can probably surmise, the device is a hearing aid that's placed on your teeth, although it's not actually implanted or attached in any way -- it's simply custom fitted to the person's upper back teeth.

The other part of the package is a more standard-type hearing aid unit that's worn behind the ear, which processes and wirelessly transmits to the device in your mouth.

That's obviously not intended for cases when a simple hearing aid will do, but Sonitus says the system can help people who are "essentially deaf" in one ear regain their spatial hearing ability.