Improved devices can enhance sound quality and conduction, even when hearing loss is caused by rare ear deformities.
One in every thousand babies is born in Singapore with severe hearing loss.
One of them is Ms Clarin Goh. Moreover, her form of hearing loss is rare. She has both an outer ear deformity known as microtia, as well as an undeveloped ear canal, known as congenital aural atresia.
“Microtia occurs in one in 10,000 live births, while aural atresia occurs in one in 20,000,” said Dr Brenda Sim, Consultant, Department of Otorhinolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Singapore General Hospital (SGH). Babies born in Singapore undergo a universal newborn hearing screening, allowing hearing loss to be caught early and urgent intervention to be given as early as three to six months, she added. They then learn language normally.
Ms Goh, who has been fitted with various kinds of hearing devices since young, mostly hairband-like hearing devices, gets rude stares from strangers. Once, a woman facing her on the MRT even commented loudly that she looked sad and pathetic with her hearing device. The feisty 25-year-old said, however, that she has learnt to live with the stares and insensitive comments. “I am used to it. If they want, they can go ahead and stare. It doesn’t matter,” she said.
In 2023, Ms Goh underwent a procedure for an implant that conducts sounds directly through the bone to the cochlear, which is the snail-like structure at the end of the inner ear that, when stimulated by sounds, sends waveforms to the brain. A bone-conducting device is needed as she is not able to receive sounds via the usual way — through the outer ear and parts of the inner ear, including the canal and ear drum.
The device she was fitted with — the Cochlear™’s Osia® Implant is one of several brands available commercially — involves a titanium implant placed under the skin, just behind the ear, and a sound processor magnetically clipped on to the implant. Unlike conventional bone-anchored hearing aids, the newer models like Ms Goh’s are aesthestically more pleasing as they do not have an abutment screw sticking out of the skull for the sound processor to be attached.
Ms Goh had to continue wearing her old hearing aid for about six weeks until the surgery wounds healed and she could start using the new OSIA implant in January 2024. Happy with the new implant, she said: “I can hear sounds more clearly now. With my old hearing aid, I could not answer phone calls normally and had to put the call on speakerphone. But now I can connect directly to Bluetooth and hear people more clearly. I can also listen to music.”
Compared to the uncomfortable headband of the past, the small disc she now wears is more discreet and can be covered by her hair. Gone too are the pain and having to apply lotion on the sore spot where her previous sound processor pressed against her skull.
How we hear
The cochlear, the snail-like structure at the back of the inner ear, is in charge of hearing.Sound waves enter the outer ear, travel through the external ear canal to vibrate the ear drum. The ear drum then transmits the sound waves to the cochlea via three small bones, known as ossicles, in the middle ear. The cochlear then sends electrical energy to the hearing or auditory nerve and on to the brain.
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