Investigate technologies that are used to assist with the effects of a disorder

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Investigate technologies that are used to assist with the effects of a disorder, including but not limited to: (ACSBL100)

• hearing loss: cochlear implants, bone conduction implants, hearing aids
• visual disorders: spectacles, laser surgery
• loss of kidney function: dialysis

• Cochlear Implants:
• Is an electronic medical device that replaces the function of the damaged inner ear.
• Unlike hearing aids, which make sounds louder, cochlear implants do the work of damaged parts of the inner ear (cochlea) to provide sound signals to the brain.
• Cochlear implants can help people who have moderate to profound hearing loss in either ear or both.
• Benefits:
• Can hear better with a cochlear implant than with a hearing aid. A previous study has shown that people with cochlear implant achieve an average of 80% sentence understanding, compared with 10% sentence understanding for hearing aids1.
• Can focus better when in noisy environments.
• Reconnect with missed sounds that they could not hear before their cochlear implant.
• Feel safer in the world as they can hear alarms, people calling out and approaching vehicles.
• Talk and hear on the phone
• Enjoy music
• Bone conduction implants:
• It is a medical device that transmits sound by direct conduction through bone to the inner ear, effectively bypassing the outer and middle ear.
• A bone conduction system consists of a small titanium implant, abutment and sound processor. Sound is transmitted as vibrations from the sound processor to the implant, through the bone to the inner ear.
• Benefits:
• Can help in hearing better in noisy situations.
• Allows a person to localise sounds.
• Helps in improved speech understanding
• Compared to conventional hearing aids, hearing with bone conduction results in a natural sound with less distortion and feedback.
• The ear canal is left open for comfort, and helps to reduce any problems caused by chronic ear infections or allergies.
• If a person is completely deaf in one ear, a bone conduction implant works by sending the sound via the skull bone from the deaf side to the functioning inner ear on the hearing side. This transfer of sound gives the person 360-degree sound awareness.
• Hearing Aids:
• A hearing aid is a small electronic device that is worn in or behind an ear.
• It makes some sounds louder so that a person with hearing loss can listen, communicate, and participate more fully in daily activities.
• A hearing aid can help people hear more in both quiet and noisy situations. However, only about one out of five people who would benefit from a hearing aid actually uses one.
• Types of hearing aid:
• Behind-the-ear (BTE) Hearing Aids consists of a hard-plastic case worn behind the ear and connected to a plastic earmold that fits inside the outer ear and are used by people of all ages for mild to profound hearing loss.
• In-the-ear (ITE) Hearing Aids fit completely inside the outer ear and are used for mild to severe hearing loss.

Spectacles / Eyeglasses:

• Pair of engineered lenses enclosed partially or completely by a frame that improves the ability to see things for a person with poor vision.
• Mostly used to treat people diagnosed with myopia and hyperopia.
• Myopic patients are given spectacles with a pair of concave lenses (minus powered) that moves the image back to the retina and clarifies it.
• For patients with hypermetropia, they are prescribed with eyeglasses that place a convex (plus powered) lens in front of a hypermetropic eye, allowing the image to move forward and focus correctly on the retina.
• Benefits:
• Provides sharp visual acuity
• Protects eyes from dusts
• Are Stable, Comfortable, and Convenient
• Are Cost Efficient

Laser Surgery:

• LASIK (laser-assisted in situ keratomileusis) is a type of laser refractive surgery.
• A special type of cutting laser is used to precisely change the shape of cornea to improve vision.
• Benefits:
• Patients usually do not experience pain with LASIK.
• Vision is improved immediately after surgery.
• Patients usually experience a dramatic reduction in the need for glasses after LASIK surgery, and some patients do not need to wear glasses at all.
• Even though LASIK requires a financial investment upfront, patients experience hundreds of dollars of savings each year because they do not need to update their eyeglass and contact lens prescription.

Dialysis:

• Dialysis is a treatment process that cleans the body of unwanted toxins, waste products and excess fluids when the kidneys fail to function properly.
• Dialysis works by filtering toxins, waste and fluid from the blood through a semipermeable membrane. There are different methods of dialysis that filter blood in different ways.
• Dialysis can take the place of some kidney function and, along with medication and proper care, help people live longer.
• There are 2 main kinds of dialysis:
• Peritoneal dialysis: Uses the blood vessels in the lining of abdomen, along with a special solution via a peritoneal catheter to filter blood.
• Haemodialysis: Filters the blood with a machine called a dialyzer.

Extract from HSC Biology Stage 6 Syllabus. © 2017 Board of Studies NSW.