2023-07-27 18:45:51
Hearing loss is “frequently underestimated even by patients”, although it represents an important limitation, as well as “for safety, linked to the lack of perception of sounds that warn of dangers”, also because we learn precisely through what we hear “and the lack of hearing determines a strong obstacle to personal fulfillment and a risk of cognitive decline”. He explains it to time.news Salute Paolo Ruscito, director of otorhinolaryngology of ASL Roma 1, which includes the hospital structures of San Filippo Neri, Santo Spirito and new Regina Margherita.
“We observe every day – he says – how the importance of controlling hearing loss, deafness, is not clearly perceived by the patients themselves, who are often reluctant to undergo prosthetic treatment”. With two main reasons. The first, “as you can guess, is the aesthetic one”. The second that is often reported is that, unfounded, of “further loss of hearing if a prosthetic system is used. Instead it is exactly the opposite”. The reduced auditory perception “involves a reduction of the intellection, i.e. of the possibility of understanding the verbal passage. And it has implications, at the cerebral cortical level, of a reduction of those neural networks that allow ideation, understanding, logic, therefore a brain decay is created linked precisely to hearing loss”. More difficult therefore, for people who don’t feel, “being able to realize themselves even at work”.
This picture “is clear to those who propose themselves on the market with prosthetic support systems on a commercial level, and this is why there is so much presence also on the media of companies and enterprises that propose, commercialize and disseminate these prostheses”. Tools that “must be evaluated with the doctor anyway” and that “are a great help for patients”. Thanks also to the technology which, over the years, has improved the performance and appeal of these tools, as in the case of the ‘promise’ of glasses with acoustic technologies being studied by EssilorLuxottica, for people with mild and moderate hearing impairment. “The steps forward have been remarkable: from analogue prostheses, visible and cumbersome, as was all the electronics of the past, to digital systems, used massively today, in which the quality of the signal, as well as the ability to apply and the reduction of volumes, are vastly improved”.
Digitization, agrees Francesca Cianfrone, doctor of the otorhinolaryngology complex operating unit of the San Filippo Neri hospital in Rome, “represented a real revolution” both in terms of sound quality, functionality and aesthetics, thanks to miniaturization. These technologies “allow you to select the sound, in the sense that you can reduce, for example, background noise and noise from the surrounding environment and focus auditory attention on the interlocutor. This is very important, especially for those with hearing problems selective, with difficulty hearing the interlocutor in a more or less noisy environment”.
Furthermore, for patients, it is an advantage “to have very small, almost invisible devices available. There is an aesthetic need, an economic need but also a need for sound quality”. Today’s devices are no longer “simple amplifiers but tools that can also connect with electronic devices via Bluetooth, such as cell phones, PCs, tablets. A fundamental need in modern society”. The future, however, is that of the implanted prosthesis.
“Compared to devices that are put on and removed – continues Cianfrone – we are increasingly moving towards totally implantable prostheses. Through soft otosurgery these small prostheses, completely invisible once implanted, are positioned at the level of the temporal bone. prosthetics is becoming increasingly popular, especially abroad”. The hearing aid of the future, therefore, “will be increasingly implanted, invisible and equipped with the highest technology”, concludes Cianfrone.
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