Annual Report 2010/11 - Sonova

eaKinG barrierS
– with talent and technology
When Joel developed meningitis at the age of 14 months,
which left him with severe inner ear damage, no one could
imagine that he would one day learn to play an instrument.
Since then, Joel has become completely deaf in his left ear
and has profound hearing loss in his right ear.
Joel began wearing hearing aids from Phonak at a young
age and since the age of seven he has been using the
wireless Phonak CrosLink solution in his completely deaf
ear. Around the same time, he began to take piano lessons.
They were originally intended to serve as hearing therapy,
but Joel soon proved to have great musical talent.
Today, he wears the high-performance Phonak Ambra
hearing instrument, which is equipped with a music
program. He turns it on manually when playing music and
it helps him to play the piano even better and with more
differentiation. In fact, he plays so well that he won first
place in the regional competition “Young people make
music” (“Jugend musiziert”) in 2011. Above all, the
judges praised his ability to feel and express the music
and to make the audience feel it as well.
In truth, one would expect Joel to reach his musical limits
at some point due to his profound hearing loss. But he
keeps managing to delay that event – with talent, passion
and Phonak technology. Joel has recently begun wearing
the new Phonak CROS, which wirelessly transmits sound in
full bandwidth from the deaf ear to the hearing instrument
in the other ear. This not only makes it easier for him to understand
language in a noisy environment; his piano playing
has also improved and taken on a softer tone – something
his piano teacher also confirms.