Any kind of disability is very tough and struggling for the person suffering from it and their family members. Last week in a blogger event, I had a chance to talk with a team who are working a lot in the field of hearing disabilities by making the devices and accessories to help the person with hearing to live the life normal like any other person.
I am very thankful to the Cochlear India team to enlighten me about the hearing issues, sensitivity, and impact of this problem. For normal persons, it’s nearly impossible to understand the suffering and struggle of the person or family fighting with hearing problems or any other disability.
Over 466 million people live with the disabling hearing loss. It is predicted that by 2050 nearly one in ten people will have hearing loss. This is the time when everyone should take the hearing problems very seriously not just the person or family but also hospitals and the government should act proactively.
Cochlear is a Sydney, Australia based medical device company that designs, manufactures and supplies the Nucleus cochlear implant, the Hybrid electro-acoustic implant, and the Baha bone conduction implant since 1981.
The Nucleus is a system combining an electrical simulation device that is surgically implanted behind a patient’s ear, a processor that captures sounds, and an electrode array that relays the sounds to the brain. It is a direct descendant of the original cochlear implants, also known as Nucleus, developed by Dr Graeme Clark in Melbourne during the 1970s.
Nucleus 7 Cochlear Implant Sound Processor
The Nucleus 7 is the latest Cochlear Implant Sound Processor for a person with severe to profound sensorineural hearing loss. Nucleus 7 has all the reason to be the amazing piece of tech, it is lighter, compact and fully controllable via smartphone using the app “Nucleus Smart” specially designed for the product, the app is available for Android and iPhone users.
Watch the animated video below to know how Nucleus 7 works.
Nucleus 7 and its compatibility with the smartphone is fascinating when you think as a person’s perspective who is having the hearing loss problems or who are using the older or other kinds of sound processors.
The mobile application designed for the Nucleus 7 has almost all the features any Cochlear Implant receiver can think of, it has wireless connectivity features, receivers can play the music, watch videos via phone or other wireless-enabled devices, noise reduction, Forward Focus, volume settings, and rechargeable or non-rechargeable battery options etc.
A person or receiver of Nucleus 7 Cochlear Implant Sound Processor can do the everything like any other normal human being whether its study, classroom, movie theatre, party or any other kind entertainment like listening music, watching videos on the phone, and even making the phone calls; all they need to do is connect the Nucleus 7 Sound Processor with the phone via Nucleus Smart app, once the device is connected with the phone it will work similar to the normal wireless headphones and now you can play the music on your phone, watch the video, and make phone calls seamlessly.
That’s not all, it can also be connected with the wireless enabled TV, just imagine the how useful it will be for the person with hearing loss to enjoy the TV wirelessly and perfectly like any other normal person.
The app running in the background will keep monitoring everything and it will show the stats graph with all the uses information including the battery info of the Sound Processor, and also information like “Time in Speech”. “Coil Off Time”. This type of products have a very common scenario of losing or misplacing it but thankfully Nucleus 7 got the covered by adding the tracking feature by which you can track back to the devices with the real-time location on Google Map.
During the presentation of the Nucleus 7, I personally liked “Forward Focus” mode the most, this is very useful and unique feature specially for receivers who are working somewhere or if they are in a party or place where there is too much background noise. The “Forward Focus” feature on the Nucleus Smart app can reduce the background noise so that the receivers can have a better conversation without any interruptions. (Watch their beautiful demo video below)
The Nucleus 7 comes with the splash-proof features but if you want even more protection from water than there is also a waterproof version of the Nucleus 7 and that is called Nucleus 7 Aqua Plus (Aqua+). All Nucleus 7 Cochlear Implant Sound Processors are 24% lighter, 25% smaller in size and have 50% more battery life than its predecessor.
On the occasion, I had a lifetime opportunity to meet the legendary cricketer Brett Lee. It was an honor meeting him and heartily appreciate the way he is doing the awareness for hearing defects in India and around the globe as Cochlear Implants Global Hearing Ambassador.
Brett Lee is the Cochlear Implants Global Hearing Ambassador for last four years and the way he explained the functionality and vision about the products was amazing, it appeared that he is very closely involved with the Cochlear team and aware of the all features and use cases of the Nucleus 7 Cochlear Implant.
Brett Lee said “hearing defects are a serious problem and it should be diagnosed earliest possible”, that’s why Brett Lee and Cochlear India team are visiting hospitals countrywide with a vision to make the hearing defects screening mandatory for all newborn children.
We also had a chance to interact with a little girl and her family at the blogger meet for Nucleus 7, the girl got the Cochlear Implant when she was just 20 months old and now she attends a normal school & excels at studies. The little girl named Amishi Kunal steals the show with her cute conversation with Brett Lee and her parents.
