Biomedical studies on the age-related changes of the sound trasduction mechanisms and its clinical applidations.

Takasaka博士是该研究项目的首席研究员，他和他的团队研究了与年龄相关的声音传导系统变化的生物学机制，以及老年性耳聋的耳科证据。这个项目是通过为听力障碍的老年人开发全数字化便携式助听器(CLAIDHA)而完成的。自1995年该项目开始以来的头两年，我们主要花了一段时间进行外周声音传导机制的基础生物学研究，并在佛罗里达州耳喉科研究会的仲冬会议和其他与耳科相关的国内会议上报告了结果。1995年7月，CLAIDHA的生产终于完成，并获得了卫生福利部的临床应用许可。为此，我们开始了对老年性耳聋的鉴别诊断和新开发的CLAIHDA的配戴程序的临床研究，并在美国马里兰州贝塞斯达举行的国际助听器新趋势会议上报告了CLAIDHA的临床应用初步研究。如上所述，我们能够为老年性耳聋的研究做出贡献，并为听力障碍的老年人提供一个新的辅助系统。我们要感谢教育部在1993年至1995年期间为科学研究(A)提供助学金。

Dr. Takasaka, head investigator of this research project, and his group has studied biological mechanisms of age-related changes of the sound transduction systems as well as otologic evidences of the presbycusis. This project has been accomplished by the development of the completely digitalized portable hearing aid (CLAIDHA) for elders who suffer from hearing impairment.For the first two years since this project has started in 1995, we have mainly spent a time performing the basic biology of the peripheral sound transduction mechanisms, and the results obtained have been reported at the Midwinter Meeting of the Association for Research in otlaryngology in Florida and other otology related domestic meetings.In July 1995, production of the CLAIDHA has finally been completed and permission for clinical application was obtained from the Ministry of Health and Welfare. Therefor, we have started audiometric clinical studies on the differential diagnosis for the presbycusis as well as on the fitting procedures for the newly developed CLAIHDA.The preliminary studies of the clinical applications for the CLAIDHA was reported at the International Conference on the New Trend of the Hearing Aid held at Bethesda, MD,USA.As mentioned above, we have been able to contribute to the acceleration for the research in presbycusis and also to provide a newly developed aiding system for the aged peoples with hearing impairment. We would like to express our thanks to the Ministry of Eduction for providing Grant-in Aid for Scientific Reaserch (A) from 1993 to 1995.