Health Sciences · Hospital for Sick Children
A clear acrylic display stand serves as mount for a small, tan coloured device with a rectangular form factor. This is a bone conduction hearing aid.
The hearing aid can be detached from its display stand. This arrangement demonstrates the device’s quick release attachment to its surgically implanted mount.
Accession Number: 2025.sk.58
Alternative Name:
Primary Materials: Plastic, Metal
Printed on one side of the hearing aid: “01 A 75S3”
(Mount) Height = 8, Width = 6.5, Length = 9
Conventional hearing aids are not suitable for certain patients with hearing loss. In some cases, the earmould exacerbates chronic inflammatory conditions of the middle ear. In other cases, the ear canal does not allow for an earmould due to congenital or acquired conditions.
Under these circumstances, a bone conduction hearing aid is one solution. This device transmits sound to the inner ear using conduction through the bones of the skull. There are various ways to mount such a device so that it can make sufficient contact with the skull. For instance, the device can be mounted on a headband or on glasses. However, in some cases these methods are unsuitable. For example, a headband that is sufficiently tight to provide good contact may be uncomfortable over long periods.
This item, a bone anchored hearing aid, or BAHA, represents a solution that uses a titanium bone anchored implant to provide a secure and relatively discreet mounting point for a bone conduction hearing aid. Once the mounting point has been surgically implanted in the temporal bone, the hearing aid can be easily removed and replaced using a quick release attachment.
This item is in excellent condition with some superficial dirt.
Associated Instruments:
Nobel Biocare, Kloten, canton of Zürich , Switzerland
Date of Manufacture: c. Late 1990s.
This is part of a small collection of artifacts, gathered by Archie’s Cochlear Implant Lab at The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids), that was photographed on 8 October 2025. The items represent various stages of the technology used since the lab’s founding in 1998.
These items remain on site and in possession of the Lab. They are used for teaching and demonstration purposes.
Emmanuel A. M. Mylanus, Ad F. M Snik, Frank F Jorritsma, Cor W. R. J Cremers, and Hans Verschuure (1994). “Audiological Results of the Bone-Anchored Hearing Aid HC200: Multicenter Results.” Annals of Otology, Rhinology & Laryngology 103, no. 5 (1994): 368–74.
Bo Håkansson, Anders Tjellström, Ulf Rosenhall, and Peder Carlsson (1985). “The Bone-Anchored Hearing Aid: Principal Design and a Psychoacoustical Evaluation.” Acta Oto-Laryngologica 100, no. 3–4 (1985): 229–39.
This bone anchored hearing aid was first developed over the later half of the 1980s by a group of researchers at University of Göteborg in Gothenburg, Sweden. (See Håkansson et al. 1985).
It was designed around the titanium bone anchor technology first developed by Swedish medical researchers who went on to found Nobel Biocare in the late 1970s. Nobel Biocare is a leading manufacturer of dental implants and dental prosthetics.