Why hearing loss can cause dementia, how you can prevent it, and the Hong Kong inventors with one solution
- Even mild hearing loss doubles dementia risk, a study shows, but it is easily diagnosed and often helped with hearing aids, or sometimes even simpler methods
- Hong Kong inventor Calvin Zhang developed a comfortable, noise-cancelling hearing aid after his grandfather refused to wear his traditional one
Calvin Zhang’s inspiration for Incus, his hearing aid company, was drawn from his relationship with his grandfather, with whom he was very close.
“He taught me how to play chess, how to swim, how to hunt, how to plant watermelon.”
He noticed when his grandfather’s impaired hearing got worse. He would turn the volume on the television louder and louder – but refused to wear his hearing aids.
Zhang would learn that his grandfather’s behaviour was not unusual: in Hong Kong, only 5 per cent of the hearing-impaired wear hearing aids, because traditional devices are uncomfortable, noisy or inaccessible, he says.
With an interest in audio developed through his penchant for music, Zhang pursued a degree in signal processing so that he could understand sound at a fundamental level.
He teamed up with Professor Richard So Hau-yue at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, who had dedicated almost 20 years to the technology of hearing aids. They collaborated to find a way to effectively manage noise reduction in hearing aids so that wearers were spared the buzz and fizz of older models.
