My grandfather suffered from profound hearing loss most of his life, and in later life my parents both were more conventionally "hard of hearing". I also believe that a difficulty with the usual hearing aids contributed to my mother's eventual decline into and acceptance of dementia. Furthermore, there is some evidence that hearing loss and a rejection of today's uncomfortable hearing devices does contribute to dementia in the elderly in general, and most certainly to a decline in their quality of life. The Opticon Opn sounds like not only an advance in hearing technology but a huge advance in cognition-preserving technology...and a massive step forward in improving the lives and the quality of living for many of the worlds' elderly and others with hearing loss. My one question would be, coming from the United States where not even conventional hearing aids are subsidized by Medicare and cost already cash-strapped elders $3-6,000, how much will this new technology cost and who will be able to avail themselves of it?