Bone Conducting Hearing Devices
Procedures
Bone Conducting Hearing Devices
A bone conduction hearing device is an alternative to a regular hearing aid in people who have a conductive hearing loss due to a problem with the outer or middle ears. It is also used in people who have lost all the hearing in one ear. It requires good inner ear sensorineural thresholds to be present in at least one ear. More and more devices are appearing all the time.
ADHEAR
This device does not require an operation. The hearing aid clicks onto a pad that is stuck to the skin behind the ear.
BAHA
This requires an operation to screw an abutment into the skull behind the ear. The abutment pokes through the skin and the hearing aid is clicked onto it. It requires regular cleaning of the skin around the abutment.
Bone conducting implant with no abutment
This is a device that is fully implantable with nothing passing through the skin. An external device is worn on the side of the head behind the ear. It requires an operation to place the internal component behind the ear beneath the skin.
