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The great strides in hearing instrument design can be partially attributed to the tiny batteries that power sophisticated digital systems. However, this capability comes with a potential price. To young children, button batteries look like shiny coins. And as young children are prone to do, they often put things in their mouths that pose a danger. A swallowed button battery may become lodged in the esophagus, where it introduces an electrical current that flows through the tissue without children betraying any signs of obvious injury. The number of small children treated in emergency rooms for swallowed batteries has nearly doubled in

While there is no current cure for “tinnitus,” researchers have developed a computer game that they hope will bring relief. The persistent noise that tinnitus sufferers endure in their heads is the result of wayward sound-processing nerve cells producing the illusion of non-existent sound. The concept of the computer game under development calls for tinnitus sufferers to complete a jigsaw puzzle on a tablet computer by using audio cues to find puzzle pieces. As they move their fingers on the screen, the sound tells them if they are on the right path. The sounds are tailored to the characteristics of each

It used to be that hearing instruments amplified sounds of all frequencies equally. This meant that the lower-frequency sounds associated with background noise were given the same emphasis as high-frequency sounds found in conversation. This approach did not help those with the most common type of hearing loss, which primarily occurs in the higher frequencies. Since then, however, the digital age has ushered in products that help make conversation in the higher frequencies more distinguishable. Digitally programmed hearing instruments use microchip technology to customize amplification of sound. By turning up some frequencies and keeping others at normal input levels, it is