Development of "MobileAudiometer" for screening using mobile phones

Abstract

As we age, the functions of our body and sensory organs deteriorate. Diagnosis of hearing problems tends to be delayed and people put off wearing hearing aids as they are not aware of the deterioration and get used to paying little attention to their hearing difficulty. Adaptation of sound is necessary because sound quality perceived with hearing aids differs from that of normal sound. Detection of hearing problems at an earlier stage is important. An audiometer that can screen persons with hearing loss easily at an early stage is necessary. In this paper, a prototype of the simple audiometer as the audiometer classified into type 4 for screening/monitoring purposes regulated in IEC standards, proposed in the previous research, is developed on the mobile phone by Java application program and ringing tones of mobile phones. The functions and performance of the prototype are verified along IEC standards.