Page 63 - ITU KALEIDOSCOPE, ATLANTA 2019

ICT for Health: Networks, standards and innovation

app), considerations for selecting hearing protection based As depicted in Figure 3, the app presents the highlights of
on their needs and preferences, and other recommended the user’s noise exposure in the Hearing History and the
practices aimed at preventing hearing loss. Listening Profile modules. The Hearing History module
displays graphs of the user’s measured noise exposure over
The main goal of the app is to encourage and facilitate the time period to which the user toggles (i.e. past hour, past
healthy listening behaviors by creating a personalized sound day, past week). The listening profile keeps track of the
exposure profile and with engagement tools personalized to qualitative aspects of the user’s listening experience, such as
the user. Based on the functionalities described above, there what genre of music to which the user frequently listens and
are three main approaches for user interface personalization: periods of the user’s day where the noise exposure is
(i) active and customizable monitoring, (ii) awareness of heightened (i.e. an exercise class or a noisy commute).
personal exposure and (iii) feedback.

Personalized monitoring is accomplished selecting intervals
at which noise exposure is sampled and logged into the
cumulative exposure assessment. This flexibility allows for
improving accuracy by recommending the user to increase
the sampling rate, and accounts for efficiency by letting the
user pick times of the day to sample based on daily habits.
The user also has the flexibility of choosing the interval of
alerts and recommendations. This enables the user to select
timing when the information will be useful and likely to be
acted upon.

Personalized real-time exposure monitoring overcomes the
fact that a user cannot always perceive noise exposures that
have the potential to impair hearing. For example, short-term
loud volume levels (e.g., impact sounds) or long-term
exposure to seemingly tolerated sound levels may not cause
discomfort to otherwise alert the user of unsafe exposure.
The app’s functionality provides the user with a method of
estimating personal exposure, through defined standards,
which can then be used to assess the risk of such exposures.
The user’s estimated real-time noise exposure with effective
visual and haptic cues indicate potentially damaging
exposure levels. The cumulative noise exposure acts
similarly to indicate the potential risk faced by the user based
on the cumulative exposure duration.

Personalized feedback is derived from a comparison of
trends in the user’s real-time sound pressure level and
cumulative sound pressure exposure to the user’s desired
sound exposure, as per the relevant standards. The generated
feedback addresses outliers in the user’s noise exposure with
suggested recommendations to address the unsafe exposures.
These feedback mechanisms are iterative, in that previous
feedback is evaluated alongside changes in listening
behavior to assess the usefulness of that feedback to the user.
In the case that the previous feedback did not produce the
desired change in listening behavior, feedback offering
different solutions will be presented to the user.

3.4 Hearing Health app visual interfaces

The following interfaces display a sequence from login, user
profile selection, personal sound exposure report, alerts with
recommendation, education.

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