No.2（2007）10.Development of the medical chair in otolaryngology using bone conduction technique

Mutsumi Ishibashi, Koichi Kanda, Takeshi Kobayashi, Mikami Kazumasa, Yoshitaka Udagawa

In otolaryngological medical examinations, it is hard to have conversations with the patient because they have difficulty in hearing. In order to improve their intelligibility of conversations, a medical chair in otolaryngology using bone conduction techniques has been developed. The medical chair has the headrest cover with built-in piezoelectric bone vibrators which vibrate the back of the head and the mastoid of the patient. As it is not clear how human beings perceive the loudness of bone conducted sound in the vibration position of the back of the head, the loudness matching test between bone conducted sound and air conducted sound was carried out (Experiment I). Then, building the filter based on the result of Experiment I in the system, the word intelligibility was tested with the medical chair having the headrest cover with built-in piezoelectric bone vibrators (Experiment II). As a result, it has been found that the intelligibility is improved by the bone conduction technique.

Keywords

bone conducted sound, loudness, word intelligibility

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