Apple recently announced a hearing aid feature in its AirPods for those with mild to moderate hearing loss. Apple said AirPods will be OTC hearing aids. The earbuds will conduct hearing tests and use the data to accomodate for hearing impairment, potentially a big step forward for hearing preventive care.
Neuroplasticity: Why We Don’t Realize We’re Losing Our Hearing
Hearing loss often goes unnoticed for a long time, largely due to neuroplasticity— the brain’s ability to reorganize itself in response to changes. This is especially true for changes in auditory input. When hearing begins to decline, the brain compensates by reallocating resources, engaging other sensory systems including vision, touch and even the somatic nervous system, which controls voluntary and involuntary skeletal muscle movement called reflexes.
For example, it is common for a hearing-impaired person to cock their head in order to move their ‘good ear’ closer to the sound they want to hear, especially conversation. To fill the gaps left by reduced input from the auditory nerve to the auditory cortex, this movement can involve up to all ten cranial nerves – olfactory, optic, oculomotor, trochlear, trigeminal, abducent, facial, vestibulocochlear, glossopharyngeal, vagus, accessory, and hypoglossal nerves
The adaptations help us continue coping with hearing impairment, but they also create excess cognitive demands that can have serious long term consequences.
As hearing loss progresses, acoustic challenges increase and the brain must work harder to process sound, leading to what the WHO calls "effortful listening," which can cause fatigue and social withdrawal. Studies show that untreated hearing loss can lead to the shrinking of the brain’s auditory cortex, potentially impacting cognitive functions like speech perception and language comprehension. Hearing loss in midlife is now understood to be the leading risk factor for dementia.
Apple’s Contribution Helps Address Hidden Hearing Loss
Many millions are hearing impaired and in need of hearing assistance. However, routine hearing checkups are not the standard of care, and in truth, relatively few people want or can afford hearing aids. The ability to conduct hearing tests on demand may lead to increased awareness of progressive hearing loss over time. Apple AirPods with built-in hearing tests will likely lead to millions discovering they have at least some degree of hearing loss. It’s fair to expect some to wonder if there’s anything they can do to keep the hearing they have. No hearing assistance device can do that. Soundbites can.
AirPods and Soundbites: A Holistic, Pathbreaking Approach to Hearing Preventive Health.
Soundibtes is the first clinically proven method of preserving or improving inner ear auditory function, a biomedical hearing preventive care therapeutic available to the general public without a prescription. Soundbites softgel capsules, designed for daily use, contain the patented ACEMg neuroprotectant formula which replenishes the essential micronutrients that inner ear hearing cells and supporting cells depend on to maintain their normal biological function, especially when they are under stress.
Combining Soundbites with AirPods offers the general public a pathway to a new standard of lifelong hearing preventive care for the first time. On-demand hearing tests combine with a safe, clinically proven biomedical intervention targeted at preserving inner ear auditory function into a system for routinely assessing hearing function, and testing its impact to slow down, stop or even reverse progressive hearing loss.
AirPods offer the at-home participants of the upcoming "ACEMg for Hearing Preservation and Tinnitus Relief" clinical study the opportunity to use data from their AirPods hearing test. For more information and updates, see clinicaltrials.gov
For more information on how Soundbites works, click here.
