With driverless cars on the streets, computers that follow our voice commands, and robots performing brain surgery, some days it can feel like we are living in the future. However, the world of the modern audiologist – a patient pressing a button when they hear a beep and wearing an amplifier on their ear – would not be unfamiliar to audiologists of fifty years ago.
With more and more people living with hearing difficulties every year, researchers, futurists, and technological entrepreneurs are all searching for the next big “disruptor” in audiological practice. But where are they looking? What are they finding? And in another fifty years, will audiology still be as familiar to us?