Hearing aid manufacturer, Oticon, has unveiled new research revealing that hearing aids could reduce the impact that sound, and more specifically noise, has on a person’s stress levels. Providing a glimpse into the future of data-driven hearing aid innovation.
As part of its ongoing BrainHearing research programme, which looks at reducing the listening effort of a person with hearing loss, Oticon, at their research centre Eriksholm, is delving deeper than ever before into the world of sound we live in.
Heart Health
Its new hearing research includes a study of heart health. Eriksholm has measured pupil dilation to determine stress caused by sounds and the effort of listening, as well as studied heart rate both in the lab and the real-world, the results of which demonstrate the importance of effective hearing aid technology and correct fitting.
The lab study discovered that periods of noise, especially when listening to speech, increase stress and demonstrates that noise reduction from hearing aids can help reduce a person’s stress reaction.
Oticon has now broken out of the lab to study how real-life sound can impact health. With access to the logged acoustic data of its internet-connected hearing aids via the Oticon ON app and continuous mean heart rate in 5-minute intervals from the users’ own wearables, Oticon can see how real-world sound exposure affects heart rate and indeed how often a person’s heart rate is increased by sound changes.
Sound and Heart Rate
Oticon’s novel observations to date include that the sound we live in contributes to approximately 4% of the fluctuation in mean heart rate throughout the day.
Most prominently, periods with loud sound increase mean heart rate while access to a better sound quality (i.e., a higher signal-to-noise ratio) reduces this stress reaction and lowers mean heart rate, even when the sound is loud. Based on this data, if hearing technology was used to help reduce the impact of unwanted noisy sound and instead enhance the relevant sounds around us, it would contribute towards maintaining heart health every day.
“Noise, which essentially is unwanted sound, can be terribly unhealthy”, says Jeppe Høy Christensen, researcher, Eriksholm Research Centre, part of Oticon. “Creating a link between lab studies and user provided research, we can confidently say that by effectively making noise less burdensome by enhancing relevant sounds, through hearing technology we will be able to help improve not only the brain but also the heart health of our hearing aid users. Our research strives to constantly inspire improved hearing aid technology and we are particularly proud to have uncovered such a significant revelation. The consequence could even see manufacturers of other hearing products, such as headphones, employing new technology to benefit their users’ health.”
