external module algorithms minimum or no deterioration destruction of the residual hearing level minimum or no acoustic feedback and canal occlusion problems which are inherent with conventional hearing aids low cost and acceptability for both the surgeons and the patients to illustrate the efficacy of the present invention the inventors have tested the feasibility of two components of the invention ie the ossicular mounted piezoelectric actuator and the infrared telemetry system we have tested the feasibility of the two key innovations in this project i e the ossicular mounted piezoelectric actuator and the infrared telemetry system a ossicular mounted piezoelectric actuator an ossicular mounted actuator is used in the soundbridge implant 1 but it has an electromagnetic actuator with a moving mass component so the vibrating mechanism is not directly comparable with the presently proposed design the piezoelectric actuator used for the pilot study was an 8 mm diameter single layer disk bender of the type used in the tica hearing implant 2 the output vibration level of the tica actuator is well documented and has been shown clinically to satisfy the requirements of a hearing implant 2 this makes it suitable for demonstrating the ossicular mounted concept the actuator is available commercially american piezo company its total thickness is 0 22 mm and its mass is less than 150 mg fig3 shows a schematic of the test configuration which was designed to be a more demanding load than the real ossicular chain a copper wire was used to simulate the ossicular chain it was.