Unitron is introducing Max™, a new Super Power hearing instrument designed for those with severe to profound hearing loss. Max includes Power Adaptation Manager, a new feature that addresses over-amplification, while maximizing speech intelligibility.
In a recent survey of 200 hearing healthcare providers conducted by Unitron’s product development team,.jpg)
87% of those surveyed indicated that over-amplification is a persisting issue in their practice and would welcome a means to address the potential harm this can cause to residual hearing while still meeting patient needs.
Max’s automatic gain reduction was created to address this need, according to the company. Power Adaptation Manager works by transitioning first fit wearers to safer gain levels as prescribed by industry standard fitting formulas.
“While hearing healthcare providers recognize the need to reduce gain to maximize speech intelligibility and protect the long term hearing health of their clients with severe to profound loss, they typically face client rejection when they attempt to manually reduce gain,” explains Donald Hayes, PhD, director of audiology, Unitron. “Power Adaptation Manager solves this challenge by automatically and imperceptibly reducing gain and output to safer levels, gradually and deliberately. A hearing healthcare professional determines the right starting point for a client, then using Unitron’s TrueFit™ software, establishes a timeline to reduce gain and MPO that works best for the client.”
Utilizing Unitron’s Era sound processor, Max also includes three optimized technologies that work together to maximize speech intelligibility without compromising awareness.
Max first leverages NAL and DSL industry standard formulas to prescribe gain targets to maximize speech intelligibility for people with severe to profound hearing loss.
The second technology is a customized Unitron feature called SmartFocus.™ A directional microphone, speech enhancement, noise reduction, and gain work in relation to each other to provide a Max wearer with optimized speech understanding and comfort without compromising awareness.
Third, Max incorporates frequency compression, a feature for severe to profound hearing loss that shifts sounds away from areas where hearing is most damaged, compressing them into an audible range in order for clients to experience the full spectrum of sounds.
Jan Metzdorff, president, Unitron, commented in the press announcement, “With Max. we extend advancements to the Super Power category, becoming the first manufacturer in the industry to address the persistent issue of over-amplification while protecting long term hearing health and delivering speech intelligibility for clients with severe to profound hearing loss.”
SOURCE: Unitron
