Patent ID: 9731129
Date: 2017-08-15
CPC Classifications: A61N,H04R

Claim:
1. A method of operating a electric acoustic stimulation (EAS) hearing system, the method comprising: for an implanted electrical stimulation subsystem having an electrode array implanted in a patient cochlea with a plurality of electrode contacts for delivering electrical stimulation signals to adjacent neural tissue, determining an overlap region in an acoustically perceivable cochlear region retaining residual natural hearing and containing one or more electrode contacts; pre-processing an input sound signal with a band pass filter bank to generate a plurality of representative band pass signals each associated with a specific band of audio frequencies; processing the plurality of band pass signals to generate: receiving the electrical communications signal in the implanted electrical stimulation subsystem and delivering corresponding electrical stimulation signals to the electrode contacts; and receiving the acoustic communications signal in an external acoustic stimulation subsystem and delivering corresponding amplified acoustic stimulation signals to an ear canal of the patient; wherein the electrical stimulation signals and the amplified acoustic stimulation signals are coordinated for simultaneous delivery to the overlap region of acoustically perceivable cochlear region.