The Nowand Future of Rion2030Rion's Eyes on The of Hearing AidsRion’s Concept: A Society That Makes Full Use of Hearing Aids“Rion has a history of over 70 years since developing the rst hearing aid made in Japan (later named ‘Rionet’),” begins Yoshiyuki Narisawa, Deputy Head of the Technical Develop-ment Center. “As early as 2014, we created a vision for what an ideal hearing aid should be in the future, when Japan will be confronting the advent of a super-aged society. We titled this ‘Hearing aids in Daily Life, 2030’.”The development of hearing aids begins with an under-standing of how users’ needs change over time and foreseeing what an ideal society might be like. The technologies for hear-ing aids have advanced in leaps and bounds over the years. To move forth to the next stage, I believe we need to envision the ideal for hearing aids that will be needed in the everyday lives of those suffering from hearing impairment. Rion has dened approximately 30 scenes in our daily lives and envisaged how the hearing impaired might ideally behave in each situation.On the other hand, we’ve also deliberated on the advanc-es required of the hearing aids themselves from six different perspectives: eliminating obstacles to hearing; easy operation and maintenance; compact and variable designs; remote tting; water-resistance and shock-resistance; and the wireless infra-structure.Addressing Social Issues to Realize a Society That Makes Full Use of Hearing AidsThe elderly constitute the majority of hearing aid users. It’s simply a law of nature that hearing degrades with age. It’s undeniable that the number of people suffering from hearing impairment will surge in Japan as the baby boomer generation reaches the old-old stage (over 75 years old) from 2025 onward.Right now, the rate of hearing aid usage among the hearing impaired in Japan stands at 14%, only a third of that of Europe.Why does the rate of usage remain so low in Japan? Two general factors may be involved: a problem with how the hear-ing impaired interact with society and a problem with the ac-quisition of hearing aids. In the rst place, people with hearing impairment are often unaware that they have this condition, and the people around them have little understanding of the problem. Furthermore, public funding for the acquisition of hearing aids is lacking in Japan. These are the two major ob-stacles.In response, the Liberal Democratic Party’s league of Diet members for the promotion of countermeasures for hearing impairment announced the Japan Hearing Vision in 2019. In March of 2021, WHO announced the guidelines for hearing care in its World Report on Hearing. We’re seeing the signs of change happening at last.Technologies for Transforming Hearing Aids into EarsLet’s turn our attention to how much hearing aids them-selves have advanced.“Technologies for hearing aids are much more advanced than you might imagine,” says Narisawa.The purpose of a hearing aid is basically to allow smooth communication. That’s why they’re designed to eliminate noise, or sounds other than voices, to make the latter more audible. The key to doing this is digitization. The basic mechanism of a hearing aid consists of digitizing and processing the sound col-lected by its microphone in real-time, so that the sound heard is optimized for each hearing-impaired person. To enable this customized optimization, the input sound is divided into multi-ple frequency bands, after which the degree of amplication for each band is nely adjusted.The component responsible for enabling this function is the digital signal processor installed inside the hearing aid. It’s a microcomputer powered by a mere 1.3 V battery.If an infrastructure for the wireless transmission of voice information were to be established, the functions currently of-fered by hearing aids could also be used for receiving various information—emergency warnings, for example. Hearing aids can also access the Internet via smartphones using Bluetooth or other wireless connections. Hearing aids have already evolved into an information communication device for those with a hearing impairment.Rion’s Vision: “There’s Nothing Special About the Ability to Hear in Everyday Life”Narisawa explains hearing aids should ideally be an “ex-tension of the ears.” They shouldn’t be mere equipment that relays sound. Rather, they should serve as ears for the hearing impaired. We shouldn’t forget that hearing aids are also med-ical devices. They need to be tted meticulously for each user, depending on the degree of impairment.In terms of technological advances, new ideas are born con-stantly. How much have we achieved in realizing the vision for hearing aids by 2030 conceived in 2014?Of the 35 goals, 11 have already been realized. Efforts are in progress for another 11. The key to realizing all the goals within the next eight years will be establishing a wireless infra-structure.“Our hearing deteriorates with age. There’s no avoiding it. We just have to accept this.....or do we? Maybe we no longer need to give up so easily. Using hearing aids with ever-advanc-ing features, many people with hearing impairment will be able to ‘hear’ just as well as they used to and communicate with oth-ers. That’s the world we want to realize,” says Narisawa about Rion’s vision for the future.Note: This diagram of the vision for the future does not assume the existence of or our involvement with any actual projects related to social environment creation and the like by national or municipal governments.10
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