AudioCardio offers sound therapies to better manage hearing loss and tinnitus.
At the beginning of May, I posted a story with an interview with audiologist Dr. Marc Fagelson. A professor of audiology and speech-language pathology at East Tennessee State University, he went in-depth with me on tinnitus and how doctors can help patients clear with that rather than cure the. Dr. Fagelson, who is part of the scientific advisory committee at American Tinnitus Associationtold me that tinnitus is more of an annoyance than conflicting when it comes to one’s overall health, and said that it is “more or less harmless” and won’t hurt anyone. Many coping mechanisms and other therapies, he said, are psychological in nature because tinnitus stands out as “mutually reinforcing psychological problems, emotional problems, (and) other types of functional problems.”
In line with helping people live better with tinnitus, a few months ago I sat down with Chris Ellis to talk about his app called AudioCardio. On its website, the software, available on iOS and Android, is billed as “designed to strengthen hearing and relieve tinnitus.” It further describes the app as “evidence-based” and delivers “inaudible sound therapies designed to maintain and strengthen your hearing while providing relief from tinnitus by stimulating the cells inside the ear.”
As AudioCardio says, the app is like physical therapy for one’s ears.
Ellis, AudioCardio’s co-founder and CEO, explained the impetus for building the app lies in his time as caretaker for his grandfather. His grandfather suffered from cognitive decline and eventually died from complications of dementia. During her years as a caregiver, Ellis would dive deep into researching ways to help her senior cope with dementia and find out what causes it and how to confront it. Ellis would come across several studies that found a link between dementia and untreated hearing loss, which resonated with him because his grandfather worked in the Air Force as a hydraulic engineer and as such “(worked) around very loud machines with big machines with very loud noises.” Such prolonged exposure caused hearing loss and tinnitus, but Ellis said his grandfather “refused” to wear hearing aids or seek treatment. Ellis said he and his family equate their grandfather’s eventual cognitive decline with his inability to hear things, as it caused “isolation, frustration and depression.” Ellis’s network led him to connect with a scientist working on hearing loss; their collaboration is what gave birth to AudioCardio as it is today.
“(We tried to) provide an easily accessible and affordable solution for people all over the world,” Ellis said.
On its website, AudioCardio explains that the software works via a “clinically proven” method called threshold sound conditioningor TSC. The method, tested by the Stanford University School of Medicine, is described as a “non-invasive acoustic technology designed to maintain and restore your natural hearing ability and reduce the symptoms of tinnitus.” Ellis said the AudioCardio “plays an inaudible and personalized sound repeatedly and continuously to stimulate a specific group of cells inside the ear.” The app works in the same way that Apple’s hearing aid test for AirPods Pro does, by asking users to be in a quiet room with headphones to take the required hearing assessment. The assessment, Ellis told me, “calibrates that personal and inaudible sound therapy.” At its core, AudioCardio provides background audio; users don’t have to engage much with the app. The sounds are inaudible to the person, although Ellis said they could be picked up by someone with better hearing. Over time, more of these seemingly inaudible sounds will become noticeable at lower volumes—hence the therapy part—at which point users should recalibrate the app for their new sound levels. After enough therapy, when they drove down one’s “auditory threshold”, they would gain the ability to hear sounds at lower volumes.
As I zoomed out, Ellis told me that he believes awareness of hearing health has grown “immensely” in recent times, largely due to the work done by major companies like Apple. the tinnitus study done with the University of Michigan that was released earlier this year. Based on his data, Ellis said AudioCardio has become popular with young people, telling me that many young people cope with hearing loss as a result of spending a lot of time wearing headphones and being in loud environments like concerts, crowded restaurants and even rush hour traffic in New York City. For his own sake, Ellis noted that he tries to protect his long-term hearing health by carrying a set of earplugs with him everywhere. Also, he tries to keep the volume on devices like his phone on the bottom. And of course, Ellis eats his own dog food by using AudioCardio daily. “Because it’s passive and inaudible, when I’m working out in the morning, I can go to the AudioCardio, press play (and) listen to the audio therapy and to music at the same time,” Ellis said of using the AudioCardio himself. “I will do this routine and incorporate it into my daily activities.”
AudioCardio, Ellis told me, is aimed at “people with sensorineural hearing loss — that is, hearing loss caused by noise exposure and trauma, brain trauma, as well as other neurocognitive problems.” He added that hearing loss often occurs gradually from things like aging, so AudioCardio could positively impact the “majority of hearing loss” that people experience.
When asked about the feedback, Ellis said it has been “incredibly rewarding” for the team, especially with AudioCardio being a startup. Obviously, every business has good days and bad days, but Ellis emphasized that he has received countless emails from customers who, before finding AudioCardio, were desperate to find a solution for their hearing health. The app has been “life-changing” in that way, with Ellis saying people are “very excited” and always asking the team to add more frequencies and other functionality to AudioCardio.
“They’re definitely engaged,” Ellis said of AudioCardio’s users. “They definitely benefit from using our application – we know that from the requests and support we get from our community.”
As for the future, Ellis returned to AudioCardio’s main mission. He said the company will continue to push forward in “(providing) an accessible and affordable solution for people all over the world.” He admitted that while the US is relatively rich in terms of access to specialists and the like, there are people living in rural areas of the country who don’t have easy access to healthcare. So the presence of AudioCardio may well be accessibility in a different way, as Ellis said the app “(gives) them access to something that they can download anywhere, anytime is the first priority.” More broadly, Ellis envisions AudioCardio as a major player in the fields of digital health and digital therapy, and says they see other applications for its underlying technologies — including potentially for other types of devices that could potentially spur “(help) individuals to a meaningful way.”
“We’re continuing to do research. We’re looking forward to the future,” Ellis said.
