This is the first time Patrick Mulvey has jumped in a swimming pool in 10 years. He gave it up when his hearing started to go.

"I cranked the music up a little bit too loud, and I started feeling the effects of it," said Patrick Mulvey.

Both ears suffered moderate hearing loss -- so much so, that without help, life is practically impossible to hear.

"It's difficult to understand people on the whole." he said.

Now, the next generation of hearing aids can help Patrick hear in and out of the water. A lyric hearing aid is the first of its kind to be studied in swimmers, and it's virtually invisible.

"This is the only hearing aid that's immersed this deeply down the ear canal," said Robert Sweetow, Ph.D., Director of Audiology/Professor of Otolaryngology.

It sits one-sixth of an inch from the eardrum. The sound can be turned up and down with the use of a magnet outside the ear.

"It doesn't fall out because the ear canal goes in and curves, so there are two flanges on this device that grip the bone of the ear canal," said Robert Sweetow, Ph.D.

The lyric cannot help people with very small ear canals, bone protrusions or severe hearing loss, but for those with less or moderate loss, this gives them a new option. Traditional hearing aids may have feedback, over amplify background noises, the batteries die frequently and they have to be removed while showering or swimming. Now, Patrick is back in the pool and says he'll dive in more often.

"If I can do this, I'll probably end up doing it a couple a times a week."

For more information: Ivanhoe Broadcast News2745 W. Fairbanks Ave.Winter Park, FL 32789http://www.ivanhoe.comRamin Khalili, Special Projects Producerrkhalili@ivanhoe.comDirect Line: (407) 691-1513Viewer Line: (407) 740-0789 ext. 579