Open week has pulled a few people out of the woodwork to try the Alera stock.
Positives: plenty of power and surprisingly good streamer performance.
Negatives: The power receiver design does not fit the power dome at all and the remote/bluetooth isn't as good as the Dex unit from Widex.
Lots of trials still happening so will report back as they come to a conclusion - people do seem to like the sound from the Alera range though - which given the lack of performance from the Spice range is good. Spice+ however is just out and apparently deals with the glitches in the aids through the firmware update in Target 2. Unusual (100dB) 500hz resonances were seen by the REM machine on normal speech input, which I guess is a LF compensation built in to the prescription tool. I'm wondering if somebody got their sums wrong here as there was a peak even after the gain had been modelled through the feedback manager. The worst part was that the software didn't illustrate the level of power at all: it just looked like a flat 10-12dB gain but the output through the Avant showed more than 30dB of gain applied at the same point.
Right, more trials to sort.....
Monday, 7 November 2011
Thursday, 8 September 2011
My answer to the question of how hearing aids 'damage' your hearing through wear.....
Originally Posted by zafdor  No, educate me. Agreed on the conductive losses, I can understand that as an exception. since the conducted loss is in effect an attenuator to what the cochlea is exposed to. I don't see how compression/gain rules or the like would change the fact that a power aid can easily put out 130dB if you allow it to. Perhaps a more insightful discussion is what exactly are the parameters of loud sounds that can cause permanent hearing loss. I personally take the somewhat ignorant and conservative approach that if I'm exposed to anything over 80db SPL c weighted average I wear hearing protection. |
Quote:
Originally Posted by MikeF I'll admit that my example indicates extreme hearing loss but even a typical person with 30-40 SPL DB amplification for some frequencies falls into the danger zone of having their hearing damaged during normal conversation, watching tv, or normal daily activities. It is generally accepted that 90 DB sound levels for 8 hours a day and 100 DB sound levels for 2 hours per day can cause ear damage. Therefore people that had 30-40 SPL DB amplification would likely be in environments daily that could produce those sound levels. If those levels of amplification could produce ear damage, you would think that an ENT or audiologist would warn people to stay away from vacuum cleaners, dishwashers, clothes dryers, air conditioners, walking in city streets, noisy restaurants, or even background music without ear protection or possibly removing the hearing aids. Also you would think that the ENT or audiologist would recommend that a person use headphones instead of hearing aids when watching tv since headphones do not over amplify deficient frequencies and it is likely that the person will hear the tv better than with hearing aids. So it appears that amplification for someone that doesn't hear certain sounds has a different effect on the possibility of damage to ears than over amplification of sounds for people with normal hearing. It would be nice to get some hard facts about hearing aids and ear damage instead of just speculation (lot of speculation on the Internet) so that each of us can try to create an environment that enhances our lives. I have yet to see an ENT indicate that properly adjusted hearing aids will either cause or not cause ear damage. |
First you have to understand that these numbers we throw around on here 80-90-100 dB aren't a linear scale. To put it simply, if one speaker puts out 80dB and you put another speaker right next to it you produce a whopping 83dB. So a doubling of 'power' equates to a 3dB rise in measured output.
The next thing to take into the equation is that there's a reasonability test applied to gain which forms the basis of all gain calculations. IE: how much sound is 'needed' to hear whilst staying within people's UCL or uncomfortable loudness levels.
The third aspect is that the inputs we have been discussing (speech) aren't 65dB AVERAGE, they are 65 dB 'peak' value. The average value is about 30-40dB depending on the mix of ambient and speech proportion.
The fourth part of this is that given all of the above, engineers determined in the 50's 60's 70's 80's and 90's refinements to the basic concepts so that you don't break some fairly fundamental 'rules' of gain.
Namely: 1/2 gain and 1/3 gain rules, basically that if you have a conductive hearing loss, you will receive Half that amount back in gain, at the appropriate frequencies. If you have sensorineural loss, that will be 1/3 or less. Now in our fancy digital age, there are systems that deviate from this to an extent, but that's the basic precept.
So, if you have a 60dB loss, on average, you'll get 20dB gain on average. Which, even on a 65dB input signal doesn't put you anywhere near the 85dB (Aleq), simply because the average dose of continuous speech at 85dB is going to be around 40-50dB. Any more than this is going to do your swede in as you'll get Auditory Fatigue from the long term exposure.
To combat this, for the last couple of decades hearing aids have been built with circuits that incorporate compression - compression is a technique which allows louder sounds to be given less gain while still amplifying the quieter ones. This has the beneficial effect of making the quieter sounds audible but not blowing your head off with the louder sounds. Now, you'll hear some people saying that compression is bad, and linearity is good, especially for music. Yes, this is true to an extent, but, non-believers, listen-up! you've had some degree of compression in your analogue aids for years - go and dig out the old Gennum and K-Amp specs if you like - or even ask Mead Killion (if he's still going around on his unicycle....) Basically all circuits compress the output to some extent to avoid the receiver clipping - overdrive distortion on the sound. ~(output-limiting compression)
And finally, just when you think that the manufacturers are really going to do you down, we have software. All the stuff you can see, and all the stuff you cant. Here's a though: wouldn't it be a really good idea to put a limiter into ALL hearing aids? Just to keep the Lawyers happy and to stop self-programmers from really doing damage? Well, what if we put in default UCL limiters at 105-110dB? So that the peak values of the output wouldn't do any real harm......You can override them of course, but that's at your risk.
Just think, if somebody fires a gun near your head with occluding hearing aids in - you'll experience less hearing damage than the person who fired it.....
So, there it is, in a nutshell. Hearing aids listening to speech are unlikely to damage your hearing further. I hope that doesn't sound to patronising. If you want more info, try to get hold of the excellent book: Hearing Aid by Harvey Dillon or Andi VonLanthen's one.
Thursday, 1 September 2011
Reverse Slope Hearing loss - Good article and explanation from a patient.
The Bizarre World of Extreme Reverse-Slope
(or Low Frequency) Hearing Loss
(short, abridged version)
(Click here to read the complete, unabridged version)© April 2007 (latest revision August 2007), by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.
“Impossible,” you say, “a person could never have such good and bad hearing at the same time!”
Surprise! It’s true. Welcome to my world—the bizarre world of people with extreme reverse-slope hearing losses.
What Is Reverse-Slope (or Low Frequency) Hearing Loss?
Hearing losses are sometimes classified according to the shape they form on an audiogram. They commonly go by strange names such as ski-slope loss, cookie-bite loss, flat loss, reverse cookie-bite loss and reverse-slope (or reverse curve) hearing loss. (My article Kinds of Hearing Losses explains these different hearing losses and illustrates the various shapes they form on audiograms.) |
| Fig. 1. Severe ski-slope loss |
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| Fig. 2. Severe reverse-slope loss |
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| Fig. 3. Mild reverse-slope loss |
For practical purposes, we can group reverse-slope hearing losses into three basic classes.
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| Fig. 4. Neil's severe reverse-slope loss at age 21 |
Class 2. Rarer, is a fairly-steep up-sloping line in the standard audiometric frequencies. In this class, there is a moderate to severe hearing loss in the frequencies below 1,000 Hz, but at the same time, hearing becomes virtually normal somewhere in the range of 2,000 to 6,000 Hz (Fig. 2). It is in Class 2 that the differences between reverse-slope losses and ski-slope losses really become apparent.
Class 3. The rarest form of the reverse-slope loss reveals a steep up-sloping line ranging from severe to profound hearing loss (70 to 110 dB) in the low frequencies to incredible hearing in the very high frequencies (those frequencies above 8,000 Hz) (Fig. 4).
Years ago (when I was in my early 20s) my hearing ranged from 75 dB at 1,000 Hz to -30 dB in the frequencies above 16,000 Hz (Fig. 4). (Note: numbers above the 0 dB line represent super-acute hearing, and are expressed as negative numbers.) Since I could easily hear “silent” dog whistles, some said I had “dog ears” hearing.
It is here in Class 3, with its incredible range of over 100 dB between the faintest low-frequency sound heard and the faintest high-frequency sound heard, that truly bizarre hearing is the most pronounced. Since my hearing loss spanned an incredible range of 105 dB, no wonder people were always confused about what I could, and could not, hear!
For example, my former mother-in-law wouldn’t believe my hearing was as bad as it was because she would whisper when she didn’t want me to hear something, and I would easily hear her. (She never caught on that if she just spoke in a normal voice, I wouldn’t have understood a thing!) (Back to Table of Contents)
How Common Are Reverse-Slope (or Low Frequency) Hearing Losses?
Mild reverse-slope hearing losses are relatively rare. However, extreme reverse-slope hearing losses like mine are much rarer still. Dr. Charles Berlin, formerly head of the Kresge Institute in Louisiana, one researcher that has studied this kind of hearing loss fairly extensively, estimates that out of the roughly 31 million hard of hearing people in the USA, there are 3,000 plus people that have my unusual kind of reverse-slope hearing loss. (Back to Table of Contents)Causes of Reverse-Slope (or Low Frequency) Hearing Losses
When people think of causes of reverse-slope losses, typically they think about Meniere’s disease. Classic Meniere’s disease does indeed often, but not always, result in a reverse-slope hearing loss (Class 1 curve), at least in the beginning stages.However, probably the most common cause of reverse-slope hearing losses, particularly in Classes 2 and 3, is of genetic origin. Hereditary losses often seem to run in our families.
Reverse-slope hearing loss has run in my family for the past four generations. Those that I know of include my maternal grandfather, my mother, myself, my brother, my younger daughter and my brother’s older son. I know of a number of other people who also have reverse-slope hearing losses running in their families—some also for the past 4 or 5 generations.
It appears that extreme reverse-slope hearing losses are a dominant genetic trait. It certainly is in my family. Each person born in my family has a 50% chance of having this kind of hearing loss.
Another interesting characteristic of severe or extreme reverse-slope hearing losses such as mine is that they seem to be non-syndromic—that is, they don’t have any other conditions or syndromes associated with them.
In addition to Meniere’s disease and genetic mutations, various childhood diseases are thought to occasionally result in reverse-slope hearing losses. As Judith explained, “My hearing loss apparently was the result of measles at the age of 2.” Debbie’s daughter “was not born with a hearing loss, but acquired it from complications of chicken pox” also at age 2. (Back to Table of Contents)
How Reverse-Slope (or Low Frequency) Hearing Losses Progress
Whether reverse-slope losses get worse with time depends on what caused the loss in the first place. (Back to Table of Contents)Meniere’s Disease
One of the characteristics of Meniere’s disease is that it typically results in a progressive, fluctuating, step-wise hearing loss. Thus if you have Meniere’s disease, initially you may have a Class 1 type of reverse-slope loss. Over time, as your Meniere’s Disease progresses, you will likely find that this reverse-slope loss slowly evolves into a reverse cookie-bite or flat loss, and ultimately into some degree of a severe or profound ski-slope loss. (Back to Table of Contents)Hereditary losses
With hereditary reverse-slope losses, we seem to go through three distinct stages.Stage 1: The first stage occurs from birth to around 5 years of age. It appears that although there is some degree of hearing loss at birth, hearing in the lower frequencies rapidly decreases until around age 5 or so.
Furthermore, it seems that because of our excellent high-frequency hearing, and because of our excellent speechreading skills at a very early age (of which our parents are typically totally unaware), our hearing losses do not become apparent until something happens to drive home the fact that we cannot hear well.
For example, my parents didn’t discover I had a hearing loss until I was about 4 or 5. One day my dad, who was standing behind me where I couldn’t speechread him, asked, “Do you want to come for a ride in the car with me?” I totally ignored him, and continued playing on the floor. He knew something was wrong because I loved riding in the car! (It was a ‘29 Buick back in those days.) Another time he asked me if I wanted some ice cream—which I still love—and again I ignored him. It was at this point that my parents had my hearing tested and discovered I had a severe hearing loss!
Stage 2: The second stage begins around age 5 and continues without significant change to around age 50 (if there are no other factors involved such as hearing loss from noise damage, or from taking ototoxic drugs, for example). Thus, once we learn to adapt to our strange hearing losses, our coping strategies can remain the same for most of our lives.
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| Fig. 5. Average (ski-slope) hearing loss curves with increasing age |
As people age, they typically begin to lose their high-frequency hearing. This happens slowly and insidiously over many years. Fig. 5 plots “average” curves showing increasing high-frequency hearing loss from ages 40 (top line) to age 80 (bottom line).
Notice that people with the typical ski-slope losses have already lost their high-frequency hearing (but retain their low-frequency hearing). Thus as they age, they don’t have much high-frequency hearing left to lose.
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| Fig. 6. Progression of Neil's reverse- slope loss at age 59 |
For example, between ages 50 and 60, I lost much of my excellent high-frequency hearing. You can verify this by comparing my audiogram taken at around age 21 (Fig. 4) with my current audiogram (Fig. 6) taken at age 59. As you can see, I have lost much of my high-frequency hearing. (In fact, I am following the same hearing loss pattern my mother went though as she aged.) (Back to Table of Contents)
The Blessing of Perfect Speech
One of the things that surprises many people is that all of us with severe reverse-slope losses have perfectly-normal or near-normal speech. Imagine a person that is essentially deaf, yet has flawless enunciation, perfectly-formed and well-modulated speech, all without having had any speech therapy. This is one of the blessings of having a severe reverse-slope hearing loss.Shirley explains, “Because I have high-frequency hearing, my voice has never been affected by my hearing loss, although my hearing loss is profound.”
It’s the same with me. Because my speech is also indistinguishable from the speech of people with normal hearing, I’ve had many people refuse to believe how bad my hearing really is. Peggy, herself hard of hearing, after hearing me speak, exclaimed, “Do you realize that your speech is absolutely perfect? You must have worked very hard to perfect your tone like that, what with growing up hard of hearing.” The truth is, I’ve never had speech therapy. I’ve never needed it.
The real secret to perfectly-normal speech is hearing all speech frequencies, especially the high-frequency consonants such as “s,” “f,” “sh,” “ch,” “t,” and “th.”
When you can’t hear these sounds, it is very difficult to produce them properly. In fact, I can tell if a person has a profound loss just by the way they move their lips when they try to produce these sounds. Think how difficult, or impossible, it would be to learn to whistle if you couldn’t hear any of the sounds you were trying to produce. In like manner, correctly producing the above voiceless sounds depends so much on aural feedback—meaning you listen to the sound you make, and if it isn’t “right on” you immediately correct it. If you cannot hear it, you don’t get this feedback so you don’t correct these sounds, and your poor speech reflects this.
Since those of us with severe reverse-slope losses hear these “voiceless” sounds the best, we use them correctly in our speech, and thus avoid the flat “deaf speech” patterns of many of those with severe ski-slope losses. (Back to Table of Contents)
What It’s Like to Live with a Reverse-Slope (or Low Frequency) Hearing Loss
Having a Class 2 or 3 reverse-slope loss makes for some interesting experiences. Here are a few of the more bizarre things we hear, or don’t hear, and how we cope with it.- We don’t hear appliances running. Thus we have to put our hands on household appliances (fridge, washer, drier, furnace, etc) and feel the vibrations in order to know if they are running. However, we can readily hear the faint click of the relays from across a room as they kick in or out to start/stop these appliances, but we don’t know whether they just started or just stopped.
- We hear whispers very clearly—even from across a room. In school, I used to hear kids whispering from across the classroom, yet couldn't hear the teacher talking only a few feet away. It always puzzled me that the teachers never heard all the whispering that to me was so loud. Since whispering seemed so loud to me, when I used to “whisper,” I’d actually use “low voice” (which to me sounded very faint as compared to whispering). To my chagrin, everyone around heard me “whispering.” My wife kept telling me to “whisper.” It eventually dawned on me that others couldn’t hear the whispers I so easily heard.
- Since I can’t hear my car’s motor running, sometimes when I am parked I may try to start my car a second time thinking it hadn’t started. The suddenly-swiveled heads of the people nearby tell me that I just ground the gears on the starter—again! Now, I always look at the tachometer first. If it’s not reading 0, I leave the starter alone!
- The screech of the wheels of trains on the tracks is so loud to me that it hurts my ears—yet to most people this is not even a loud sound. Imagine not being able to hear the loud roar of a train bearing down on you, yet getting headaches from the painfully-loud screech (to me) of the train wheels against the tracks as the train goes around a curve.
- We can easily hear high-frequency sounds most people can’t hear. For example, I could easily hear the faint 15,734 Hz whine produced by the fly-back transformer of a TV from anywhere in the house, and even fromoutside the house, yet I had to put my ear about 6 inches from the TV’s speaker in order to understand any speech from it (if the volume was set to normal hearing levels).
- To me, certain insects chirping from a block away (even just one insect) produce a racket loud enough to drown out the voice of a person standing almost nose-to-nose speaking. The “funny” thing (to me) is that people with normal hearing either can’t hear that insect at all, or only hear it very faintly!
- We hear some birds singing and chirping away, but not others. For example, I have never heard the low-frequency sounds of an owl hooting or a Mourning Dove cooing (although I have a flock of Mourning Doves right outside my back door), yet I can easily hear a male hummingbird’s high-pitched angry squeaks as it chases off a competitor, or the wonderful trilling sounds it makes as it power dives to impress its prospective mate.
- Although we have severe hearing losses in the speech frequencies, we can easily hear faint high-frequency sounds such as a pin dropping on a table or hard floor. Sarah explains, “I have a 60-80 dB reverse-slope hearing loss. I can hear a pin drop, but normally can’t hear thunder!” (Back to Table of Contents)
Practical Differences Between Reverse-Slope and Ski-Slope Losses
Although there are many coping skills that are common to all kinds of hearing losses, a number of the coping skills you typically read about were designed with the needs of people with ski-slope losses in mind. They were not designed for those of us with reverse-slope losses—yet people think we need these coping strategies, but we often need the opposite. Here are three examples.1. People with ski-slope losses don’t want you to speak louder, but clearer.
One of the “rules” when speaking to a hard of hearing person (really meaning those with ski-slope losses) is that you don’t “yell” at them, but speak slowly and clearly at your normal volume. This approach is totally wrong for those of us with reverse-slope losses. We need people to speak louder in order to hear speech in the first place.
If you have a ski-slope loss you hear the loud vowel sounds, but not the soft consonants. Thus you hear people talking with no problem, but because most of the intelligence of speech is in the consonants, you don’t understand what people are saying. To you, speech sounds muffled because you don’t hear the high-frequency sounds. Thus you primarily want more clarity, not more volume.
In contrast, those of us with reverse-slope losses hear the soft, high-frequency consonant sounds. To us, speech is thin, almost inaudible and often sounds like whispers. For example, as I approach someone talking, the first sounds I hear are the high-frequency voiceless “s” sounds. We do not really hear a person talking until we get very close so we can hear the “voiced sounds.” Thus we typically need more volume.
2. People with ski-slope losses hear men better than women.
“Common wisdom” says that hard of hearing people hear men better than women and children. This is true for people with the typical ski-slope losses because they hear the louder, lower-pitched voices of men better. Women and children with their higher-pitched (and often softer) voices are much more difficult for them to hear and understand.
This “wisdom” is again totally wrong for those of us with reverse-slope losses. Since we hear the higher-frequency sounds best, we typically hear women’s voices better than men’s voices. I much prefer talking to women as their higher-pitched voices are more in tune with my ears. If men speak in a high falsetto voice I then hear them well too. It might sound ridiculous, but it works!
3. If you have a ski-slope loss, low-frequency noise drowns out speech.
Loud low-frequency noise is the bane of people with ski-slope losses. Speech is lost in the racket caused by the noise in factories and mills, and by the air conditioning/heating fans in our homes, offices and schools, thus people with ski-slope losses have to shout over all the low-frequency noise around them. Since we don’t hear low-frequency sounds well, we clearly hear the people shouting. That’s one situation where I tell people (tongue in cheek), “You don’t have to yell at me. I’m not deaf!” By the same token, we often do not raise our voices enough in such situations so people with normal hearing can hear us talking over the low-frequency racket.
In contrast, we cannot hear speech through all the high-frequency sounds around us. The bane of our lives are nearby sounds such as running water, clinking cutlery, rustling and crumpling papers and people whispering. (Back to Table of Contents)
Wednesday, 24 August 2011
Nice to see Speccies and Action On Hearing Loss (RNID) in bed together...
Posted on 21/06/2011
One in three people with hearing difficulties is too embarrassed to wear a hearing aid and refuse to visit an audiologist for advice, according to a recent study by Specsavers Hearing Centres. Of those polled only 16% sought help immediately after recognising a loss of hearing.
Specsavers hopes to change attitudes to hearing loss by forging a strategic partnership with the UK largest charity for the deaf and hard of hearing – Action on Hearing Loss (formerly RNID).
Action on Hearing Loss, which this year celebrates its centenary, has signed a five year agreement with Specsavers Hearing Centres to work together to remove the stigma of hearing loss and promote hearing health. Together they have pledged to reach one million people nationwide over the next year by offering free hearing checks in-store and online.
According to the charity's report, Hearing Matters, it is estimated that up to four million people in the UK would benefit from a hearing aid and that this figure will rise as our population ages and noise pollution increases. By 2031 it is predicted that 14.5 million people in the UK will have some form of hearing loss.
Action on Hearing Loss chief executive, Jackie Ballard says: 'Our own research shows that 45% of people who reported hearing problems to their GP were, at first not referred for a hearing test, and that there is, on average, a ten year delay between symptoms and treatment. We are calling on the government to commit to a national strategy for dealing with hearing loss and to prioritise it in line with other major health issues, such as dementia.'
Jackie Ballard continues: 'Prevention and early diagnosis can significantly reduce the impact of hearing loss, which can lead to social isolation and increased mental health problems impacting the NHS. By introducing an adult screening programme, the government could save the country an estimated £2 billion.'
Specsavers Hearing Centres marketing director Mathew Gully, welcomes the news: ‘We are really delighted to be working with the nation’s largest charity taking action on hearing loss. This partnership marks the start of a new chapter in the way the nation views and treats hearing loss. Hearing is fundamental to an individual’s quality of life, as well as those around them.
'We shall be working together to normalise hearing loss, much as Specsavers has done with vision, offering people the best solution and promoting easy access to hearing care. After all, there is no logical reason why there should be any difference in the way we think of vision and hearing. If together we can change people’s attitudes to wearing hearing aids, as we have with the wearing of glasses, then we will have achieved our goal.’
Jackie Ballard adds: 'It is really important to us that whoever we work with has a good reputation and shares our ambition to reach those four million people who would benefit from wearing a hearing aid. We believe that Specsavers can bring their marketing expertise and ability to reach a wide audience to help us remove the stigma surrounding this issue.
'Poor communication is the most serious barrier for people with hearing loss and can have significant personal and social costs, leading to social isolation and mental health issues. People don't think twice now about having their eyesight checked regularly but they put off having their hearing tested. Anything we can do to remove the stigma and encourage people to take action and seek help as soon as possible will have a huge impact.’'
Specsavers hopes to change attitudes to hearing loss by forging a strategic partnership with the UK largest charity for the deaf and hard of hearing – Action on Hearing Loss (formerly RNID).
Action on Hearing Loss, which this year celebrates its centenary, has signed a five year agreement with Specsavers Hearing Centres to work together to remove the stigma of hearing loss and promote hearing health. Together they have pledged to reach one million people nationwide over the next year by offering free hearing checks in-store and online.
According to the charity's report, Hearing Matters, it is estimated that up to four million people in the UK would benefit from a hearing aid and that this figure will rise as our population ages and noise pollution increases. By 2031 it is predicted that 14.5 million people in the UK will have some form of hearing loss.
Action on Hearing Loss chief executive, Jackie Ballard says: 'Our own research shows that 45% of people who reported hearing problems to their GP were, at first not referred for a hearing test, and that there is, on average, a ten year delay between symptoms and treatment. We are calling on the government to commit to a national strategy for dealing with hearing loss and to prioritise it in line with other major health issues, such as dementia.'
Jackie Ballard continues: 'Prevention and early diagnosis can significantly reduce the impact of hearing loss, which can lead to social isolation and increased mental health problems impacting the NHS. By introducing an adult screening programme, the government could save the country an estimated £2 billion.'
Specsavers Hearing Centres marketing director Mathew Gully, welcomes the news: ‘We are really delighted to be working with the nation’s largest charity taking action on hearing loss. This partnership marks the start of a new chapter in the way the nation views and treats hearing loss. Hearing is fundamental to an individual’s quality of life, as well as those around them.
'We shall be working together to normalise hearing loss, much as Specsavers has done with vision, offering people the best solution and promoting easy access to hearing care. After all, there is no logical reason why there should be any difference in the way we think of vision and hearing. If together we can change people’s attitudes to wearing hearing aids, as we have with the wearing of glasses, then we will have achieved our goal.’
Jackie Ballard adds: 'It is really important to us that whoever we work with has a good reputation and shares our ambition to reach those four million people who would benefit from wearing a hearing aid. We believe that Specsavers can bring their marketing expertise and ability to reach a wide audience to help us remove the stigma surrounding this issue.
'Poor communication is the most serious barrier for people with hearing loss and can have significant personal and social costs, leading to social isolation and mental health issues. People don't think twice now about having their eyesight checked regularly but they put off having their hearing tested. Anything we can do to remove the stigma and encourage people to take action and seek help as soon as possible will have a huge impact.’'
For general media enquiries:
Rohini Simbodyal, PR Officer, telephone: 020 7296 8274 or email:rohini.simbodyal@hearingloss.org.uk
ENDS
Notes to editors:
- Specsavers is the largest retail dispenser of digital hearing aids in the UK, offering a hearing service from more than 400 locations.
- Specsavers Sound Check the Nation survey of 825 UK residents carried out between 15 March 2011 and 09 April 2011 across all UK regions
- Action on Hearing Loss is the charity working for a world where hearing loss doesn't limit or label people, where tinnitus is silenced – and where people value and look after their hearing.
- Highlights of Action on Hearing Loss' Hearing Matters Report include:
a) By 2030, the World Health Organisation would rank hearing loss in the top 10 disease burdens in high- and middle-income countries.
b) Significant underinvestment in hearing research and a lack of progress in translating scientific discoveries into commercial treatments are holding us back. In 2010, The UK spent £1.34 on research into hearing loss for every person affected. This compares to £14.21 for sight loss, £21.31 for diabetes, and £49.71 for cardiovascular research.
c) It takes, on average, 10 years for people from recognising a hearing loss to taking action. It’s important that people take action quickly because they can benefit from hearing aids sooner and be less likely to experience unnecessary isolation, which can lead to depression. The Action on Hearing Loss hearing check www.actiononhearingloss.org.uk/check is an easy way for people to take the first steps to addressing their hearing loss.
d) There are currently four million people in the UK who would benefit from wearing a hearing aid, but have yet to do anything about it. Action on Hearing Loss wants to remove the barriers to treatment, and the stigma of hearing loss, to enable these people to take action and live their lives to the full.
A further four million young people in the UK are at risk of avoidable hearing damage from amplified music, but the government and educators are failing to recognise the magnitude of the issue.
Referral of adults with hearing loss to sensory, social care and other rehabilitation services is ad hoc and sometimes completely lacking. Key services and support such as lipreading classes are also at risk of decline.
Thursday, 11 August 2011
Excellent rehabilitation Article Written in 2004.
This article provides some excellent ideas for dealing with patients and their experiences of hearing aid wear.
http://www.hearinglosshelp.com/articles/hearingaidfriends.htm
Becoming Friends with Your New Hearing Aids
© May 2004 by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.
Question: My audiologist did not adequately prepare me for the challenges I would face in adjusting to wearing my new hearing aids. What is the best way to adapt to wearing hearing aids?—V. O.
Answer: Good question. Let's go right back to the beginning. Far too often, people have unrealistic expectations as they anticipate hearing again with their new hearing aids. For many people, the scenario goes something like this.
The big day arrives. You are excited. You should be. Today you are going to hear again! Today you will receive brand new hearing aids.
Your audiologist carefully fits and adjusts them to meet your special hearing needs. She tests you with them to be sure you hear as well as possible. You are thrilled to hear her voice so clearly with your new aids.
You proudly walk out of her office. You are now on your own with your new "ears." You look forward to a hearing adventure.
You leave the building and step out into the street. Suddenly a horrible cacophony of sounds assaults your ears. You are shocked right out of your socks! You don't ever remember traffic being this noisy. You can't stand the awful racket. Quickly you reach up and yank your hearing aids out of your ears and stuff them into your pocket—and your dream of hearing again is shattered.
Please Don't Dump Me in Your Drawer
If this has been your experience, you are certainly not alone. Close to 200,000 hard of hearing people in the UK have done the same. In fact, one in every six to eight hearing aids sold today soon lie neglected and forgotten in dresser drawers.
To the above, add the enormous numbers of hard of hearing people who only drag their hearing aids out for certain special occasions. The rest of the time their hearing aids also languish in pockets and purses or get dumped back into dresser drawers.
This is a tragedy. Hearing aids designed to live in people's ears too often are denied the opportunity to help their owners hear better. Why do people pay good money—up to £3,000.00 for each hearing aid—and then not wear them? Even more to the point, what should people be doing so that they will become successful users of hearing aids? Here are some answers.
Have Realistic Expectations of What Your Hearing Aids Will Do for You
Before you are even fitted for new hearing aids, you need to have realistic expectations of what hearing aids will and will not do for you.
1. Hearing Aids Will Not Give You Normal Hearing
Hearing aids are aids to better hearing. They are not cures for hearing loss. Hearing aids will typically reduce your hearing loss to about half of what it was before. This means that for those of us with significant hearing losses, at best, we will still have mild to moderate hearing losses. Thus, if you expect normal hearing, you will be sadly disappointed. However, if you expect to hear better, you will be pleased with your new hearing aids—particularly in quiet situations.
If you set your expectations too high, you may be so disillusioned that you may toss your hearing aids in some dresser drawer and forget about them.
For example, one elderly lady was fitted with hearing aids that allowed her to hear and understand about 95% of what people were saying. After 4 weeks, she returned the hearing aids to her audiologist and asked for a refund. Why? Because she was upset that she was still missing 5%!
She consigned herself to a life of frustration and silence, because she focused on the 5% she missed rather than on the whopping 95% she now could hear.
2. It Takes Time to Adjust to Wearing Hearing Aids
It comes as a shock to many people that they need time to adjust to wearing hearing aids. They think that adjusting to wearing new hearing aids should be like putting on new glasses—instant clear sight.
The truth is, you need to give your brain time to relearn how to hear and process all the new sounds it is now hearing—especially if your hearing loss was gradual. You gradually lost certain sounds. Now, when you put on hearing aids, all of a sudden these sounds blast your ears and you are overwhelmed.
It takes time for you to get reacquainted with the sounds you haven't heard well for decades. This does not happen in a day or even a week. Your brain needs from 30 to 90 days or even longer to complete this process—so if you give up before this time, you will think hearing aids don't work for you and you could be very wrong.
3. Everything Is Too Loud Now
One of the biggest shocks people experience when wearing new hearing aids is how loud everyday sounds now seem. The toilet flushing thunders like Niagara Falls! Clinking cutlery sounds like jackhammers. Initially, you may find you cannot stand rustling papers, running water and other everyday sounds.
However, with time, your brain will learn to turn down its internal volume control so these sounds become bearable. This is another reason you need to persevere during those first 90 days. Unfortunately, many people give up before this happens. If they had kept using their hearing aids a little longer, they would have succeeded.
People with sensorineural hearing losses also often suffer from recruitment. Recruitment is the perception that sounds increase in volume faster than they really do. Thus, if you ask a person to speak up and they raise their voice, it may seem like they are now shouting at you.
Recruitment is the result of a reduced dynamic range—that area between the softest sound you can hear and the loudest sound you can stand. Hearing aids need to amplify all sounds so that you can hear them, yet must not amplify them so much that you perceive the louder sounds as painful.
Typically, the greater your hearing loss, the worse your recruitment. Thus, you need to get hearing aids that have good wide dynamic range compression circuitry built in. This compression needs to be set properly for your hearing loss, or loud sounds will "blow the top of your head off." At least that is the way it feels.
Sounds that recruit may seem far too loud, but in reality, this is only your perception of them. In truth, they are not so loud that they are damaging your ears.
4. Hearing Aids Cannot Fix Fuzzy or Distorted Hearing
When you lose your hearing, you not only hear sounds softer, but also speech now sounds fuzzy or distorted. This is because typically you lose most of your hearing in the high frequencies. It is these higher frequencies that give speech much of its intelligence. If your ears can no longer hear these frequencies no matter how much these sounds are amplified, hearing aids will not bring clarity to your fuzzy hearing world.
However, if you still have some high frequency hearing, digital aids can be adjusted to specifically amplify these higher frequencies much more than the lower frequencies you typically hear reasonably well. This will help you hear clearer speech once again. It will not be perfect—so don't expect that—but it will be better.
5. Hearing Aids Do Not Let You Hear Well in Noise
Hearing aids work best in quiet situations when you are only 3 to 8 feet from the speaker. In noise, or at greater distances, hearing aids alone typically do not work well. In fact, not being able to hear in noise is one of the most common complaints of hearing aid users. The truth is, you may hear worse in noise than you do without wearing your hearing aids. For this you just spent £4,000.00?
If you live or work in noisy environments, make sure your hearing aids have good noise suppression circuitry. You will also find that to hear effectively in noise, you will likely need to couple your hearing aids with various assistive listening devices.
Unfortunately, few people even know that assistive technology exists, so they don't insist on having the specific features they need built into their hearing aids in order to couple to this technology.
6. You May Not be Ready Psychologically
Wearing hearing aids before you are ready psychologically is a sure way to fail. You first have to grieve for your hearing loss (i.e. work through the stages of denial, anger, bargaining, and depression before reaching the acceptance stage). It is only when you reach the acceptance stage that you are finally ready to do all you can to help yourself hear better—which includes wearing hearing aids. If you are still in the denial or depression stages, you will not give hearing aids a fair trial before relegating them to the dresser drawer.
Get the Right Hearing Aids and Features
In order to become friends with your new hearing aids, you need hearing aids that are friendly to you and your lifestyle in the first place. "Friendly" hearing aids have the features you need to hear the best you can with your particular hearing loss.
I recommend getting behind the ear (BTE) hearing aids because they are big enough to contain all the "goodies" you need, have the power you may need, last longer, need fewer repairs and are cheaper. In addition, they are easier to put on, easier to manipulate the controls and easier to find when you put them down.
What "goodies" do you need in your hearing aids? In my opinion, you should never buy a hearing aid that does not have a built-in telecoil (sometimes called a T-switch, t-coil or audiocoil). With a telecoil, you can couple effectively to personal amplifiers, FM systems or infrared system via neckloops or silhouettes and to telephones and room loops just via the telecoil. If you have a severe or profound hearing loss, you may also want direct audio input (DAI) capability and/or built-in FM receivers.
If you have to listen to people from a distance or listen when several others are talking, directional microphones can make a big difference. Better yet, get noise-canceling capability combined with directional microphones.
Use Assistive Technology with Your Hearing Aids
Noise and distance are two enemies of hearing aid users. Under these conditions, you need to combine your hearing aids with assistive listening devices such as personal amplifiers, room loops, FM systems and infrared systems. Used together, these devices can turn your hearing aids into super aids.
This is because with these devices, you are effectively moving the microphone from your ears up to the speaker. As a result, you will hear beautiful clear sound in both ears at the same time straight from the speaker's mouth. At the same time, most of the room noise is blocked out—a definite win-win situation.
Good-bye World of Silence! Successfully Adapting to Wearing Hearing Aids
If you have followed the suggestions outlined above, you now have hearing aids that will best fit your needs. You realize that hearing with them won't be perfect, but you'll hear much better than you do now. What you need to do now is learn how to effectively adjust to wearing your new hearing aids so you won't rip them out of your ears in disgust and throw them in a drawer.
In contrast to the opening scenario where the person attempted to wear his hearing aids home from the Audiologists' office, here is a better way to adjust to wearing them.
Sit down and relax in a quiet place in your home. Put your hearing aids in your ears and turn them on. Talk to yourself while you adjust the volume to a comfortable level.
Listen to the sounds around you. Do you hear the hum of the refrigerator? the creaking of your house? the sounds of a car driving by outside? the rustle of your clothes? Get used to them for they will again be a part of your life.
Learn to feel comfortable with your hearing aids. It's normal that your ears will feel full, (and probably hot and sweaty too) like you have something stuffed in them—because you do. If your earmolds hurt, go back to your audiologist to have them ground down a bit. Wearing hearing aids may feel uncomfortable to some degree, but they should never hurt.
On the first day, wear your hearing aids for only one hour. The second day: two hours, the third day: three hours. After that, add another hour a day until you are comfortable wearing them all the time. If this is too fast for you, just increase the time by a smaller amount, say 30 minutes a day.
To begin with, do not wear your hearing aids in noisy places. You need to be comfortable in quiet places first. Treat yourself to easy listening situations during your first few weeks of adjusting to wearing your hearing aids. Try not to listen to too much too soon. If sounds are too loud, turn your hearing aids down slightly. If your hearing aids begin to bother you, take them off and give yourself a rest. Put them on again later. You need time to get used to wearing them and to hearing sounds again. The key to success is to make haste slowly.
Read aloud to yourself. You may be horrified how loud or different your voice sounds. This is normal. Get used to it. This is how you really sound. Slowly you will come to like your "new" voice.
The sound of your phone ringing or the sudden ding-dong of your door bell may startle you. You may jump when doors slam, dogs bark or people cough. This too, is normal.
When you are comfortable hearing your own voice, talk to one other person in a quiet place. Have them sit between 3 and 6 feet from you.
When you are ready, wear your hearing aids outside and listen to the sounds around you. Try to identify birds singing, traffic sounds, rustling leaves, the sounds of your shoes scrunching on the sidewalk. Begin on relatively quiet streets and slowly build up to busy downtown streets.
Finally, but only after you are comfortable wearing your hearing aids in all other situations, are you ready to tackle difficult and noisy listening situations. In crowds and at parties, talk to one person at a time. Don't try to follow everyone at once. If the noise gets to you after a while, seek a quiet place. In restaurants, start with quiet, well-lighted ones. Gradually work up to noisier restaurants as you feel comfortable.
Adjust slowly and consistently to wearing your new hearing aids. You must be patient for it will take time. Remember, it takes from 30 to 90 days for your brain to adjust to the new sounds it is now hearing.
How well and how fast you adapt to your new electronic ears depends on several factors. These include: how bad your hearing loss is, the type of loss you have, how long you have had the loss, whether it happened gradually over many years or whether it was sudden, and how well your ears can discriminate different sounds.
Adapting to your new hearing aids may take a week or a month or a year—everyone is different. The important thing is to keep at it. Don't compare your progress with others.
If you only have a mild loss, you may adapt to your new aids the first day—it may be love at first sound. If your hearing loss is severe you likely will take much longer to adapt. The same is true if you have had a hearing loss for many years before doing anything about it.
However, when you finally adapt to wearing your hearing aids, something surprising happens. The day will come when you will actually feel undressed unless you are wearing your hearing aids. You realize just how much your hearing aids help you successfully cope in the hearing world. Without realising it, you and your hearing aids have become close friends indeed!
http://www.hearinglosshelp.com/articles/hearingaidfriends.htm
Becoming Friends with Your New Hearing Aids
© May 2004 by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.Question: My audiologist did not adequately prepare me for the challenges I would face in adjusting to wearing my new hearing aids. What is the best way to adapt to wearing hearing aids?—V. O.
Answer: Good question. Let's go right back to the beginning. Far too often, people have unrealistic expectations as they anticipate hearing again with their new hearing aids. For many people, the scenario goes something like this.
The big day arrives. You are excited. You should be. Today you are going to hear again! Today you will receive brand new hearing aids.
Your audiologist carefully fits and adjusts them to meet your special hearing needs. She tests you with them to be sure you hear as well as possible. You are thrilled to hear her voice so clearly with your new aids.
You proudly walk out of her office. You are now on your own with your new "ears." You look forward to a hearing adventure.
You leave the building and step out into the street. Suddenly a horrible cacophony of sounds assaults your ears. You are shocked right out of your socks! You don't ever remember traffic being this noisy. You can't stand the awful racket. Quickly you reach up and yank your hearing aids out of your ears and stuff them into your pocket—and your dream of hearing again is shattered.
Please Don't Dump Me in Your Drawer
If this has been your experience, you are certainly not alone. Close to 200,000 hard of hearing people in the UK have done the same. In fact, one in every six to eight hearing aids sold today soon lie neglected and forgotten in dresser drawers.To the above, add the enormous numbers of hard of hearing people who only drag their hearing aids out for certain special occasions. The rest of the time their hearing aids also languish in pockets and purses or get dumped back into dresser drawers.
This is a tragedy. Hearing aids designed to live in people's ears too often are denied the opportunity to help their owners hear better. Why do people pay good money—up to £3,000.00 for each hearing aid—and then not wear them? Even more to the point, what should people be doing so that they will become successful users of hearing aids? Here are some answers.
Have Realistic Expectations of What Your Hearing Aids Will Do for You
Before you are even fitted for new hearing aids, you need to have realistic expectations of what hearing aids will and will not do for you.1. Hearing Aids Will Not Give You Normal Hearing
Hearing aids are aids to better hearing. They are not cures for hearing loss. Hearing aids will typically reduce your hearing loss to about half of what it was before. This means that for those of us with significant hearing losses, at best, we will still have mild to moderate hearing losses. Thus, if you expect normal hearing, you will be sadly disappointed. However, if you expect to hear better, you will be pleased with your new hearing aids—particularly in quiet situations.If you set your expectations too high, you may be so disillusioned that you may toss your hearing aids in some dresser drawer and forget about them.
For example, one elderly lady was fitted with hearing aids that allowed her to hear and understand about 95% of what people were saying. After 4 weeks, she returned the hearing aids to her audiologist and asked for a refund. Why? Because she was upset that she was still missing 5%!
She consigned herself to a life of frustration and silence, because she focused on the 5% she missed rather than on the whopping 95% she now could hear.
2. It Takes Time to Adjust to Wearing Hearing Aids
It comes as a shock to many people that they need time to adjust to wearing hearing aids. They think that adjusting to wearing new hearing aids should be like putting on new glasses—instant clear sight.The truth is, you need to give your brain time to relearn how to hear and process all the new sounds it is now hearing—especially if your hearing loss was gradual. You gradually lost certain sounds. Now, when you put on hearing aids, all of a sudden these sounds blast your ears and you are overwhelmed.
It takes time for you to get reacquainted with the sounds you haven't heard well for decades. This does not happen in a day or even a week. Your brain needs from 30 to 90 days or even longer to complete this process—so if you give up before this time, you will think hearing aids don't work for you and you could be very wrong.
3. Everything Is Too Loud Now
One of the biggest shocks people experience when wearing new hearing aids is how loud everyday sounds now seem. The toilet flushing thunders like Niagara Falls! Clinking cutlery sounds like jackhammers. Initially, you may find you cannot stand rustling papers, running water and other everyday sounds.However, with time, your brain will learn to turn down its internal volume control so these sounds become bearable. This is another reason you need to persevere during those first 90 days. Unfortunately, many people give up before this happens. If they had kept using their hearing aids a little longer, they would have succeeded.
People with sensorineural hearing losses also often suffer from recruitment. Recruitment is the perception that sounds increase in volume faster than they really do. Thus, if you ask a person to speak up and they raise their voice, it may seem like they are now shouting at you.
Recruitment is the result of a reduced dynamic range—that area between the softest sound you can hear and the loudest sound you can stand. Hearing aids need to amplify all sounds so that you can hear them, yet must not amplify them so much that you perceive the louder sounds as painful.
Typically, the greater your hearing loss, the worse your recruitment. Thus, you need to get hearing aids that have good wide dynamic range compression circuitry built in. This compression needs to be set properly for your hearing loss, or loud sounds will "blow the top of your head off." At least that is the way it feels.
Sounds that recruit may seem far too loud, but in reality, this is only your perception of them. In truth, they are not so loud that they are damaging your ears.
4. Hearing Aids Cannot Fix Fuzzy or Distorted Hearing
When you lose your hearing, you not only hear sounds softer, but also speech now sounds fuzzy or distorted. This is because typically you lose most of your hearing in the high frequencies. It is these higher frequencies that give speech much of its intelligence. If your ears can no longer hear these frequencies no matter how much these sounds are amplified, hearing aids will not bring clarity to your fuzzy hearing world.However, if you still have some high frequency hearing, digital aids can be adjusted to specifically amplify these higher frequencies much more than the lower frequencies you typically hear reasonably well. This will help you hear clearer speech once again. It will not be perfect—so don't expect that—but it will be better.
5. Hearing Aids Do Not Let You Hear Well in Noise
Hearing aids work best in quiet situations when you are only 3 to 8 feet from the speaker. In noise, or at greater distances, hearing aids alone typically do not work well. In fact, not being able to hear in noise is one of the most common complaints of hearing aid users. The truth is, you may hear worse in noise than you do without wearing your hearing aids. For this you just spent £4,000.00?If you live or work in noisy environments, make sure your hearing aids have good noise suppression circuitry. You will also find that to hear effectively in noise, you will likely need to couple your hearing aids with various assistive listening devices.
Unfortunately, few people even know that assistive technology exists, so they don't insist on having the specific features they need built into their hearing aids in order to couple to this technology.
6. You May Not be Ready Psychologically
Wearing hearing aids before you are ready psychologically is a sure way to fail. You first have to grieve for your hearing loss (i.e. work through the stages of denial, anger, bargaining, and depression before reaching the acceptance stage). It is only when you reach the acceptance stage that you are finally ready to do all you can to help yourself hear better—which includes wearing hearing aids. If you are still in the denial or depression stages, you will not give hearing aids a fair trial before relegating them to the dresser drawer. Get the Right Hearing Aids and Features
In order to become friends with your new hearing aids, you need hearing aids that are friendly to you and your lifestyle in the first place. "Friendly" hearing aids have the features you need to hear the best you can with your particular hearing loss.I recommend getting behind the ear (BTE) hearing aids because they are big enough to contain all the "goodies" you need, have the power you may need, last longer, need fewer repairs and are cheaper. In addition, they are easier to put on, easier to manipulate the controls and easier to find when you put them down.
What "goodies" do you need in your hearing aids? In my opinion, you should never buy a hearing aid that does not have a built-in telecoil (sometimes called a T-switch, t-coil or audiocoil). With a telecoil, you can couple effectively to personal amplifiers, FM systems or infrared system via neckloops or silhouettes and to telephones and room loops just via the telecoil. If you have a severe or profound hearing loss, you may also want direct audio input (DAI) capability and/or built-in FM receivers.
If you have to listen to people from a distance or listen when several others are talking, directional microphones can make a big difference. Better yet, get noise-canceling capability combined with directional microphones.
Use Assistive Technology with Your Hearing Aids
Noise and distance are two enemies of hearing aid users. Under these conditions, you need to combine your hearing aids with assistive listening devices such as personal amplifiers, room loops, FM systems and infrared systems. Used together, these devices can turn your hearing aids into super aids.This is because with these devices, you are effectively moving the microphone from your ears up to the speaker. As a result, you will hear beautiful clear sound in both ears at the same time straight from the speaker's mouth. At the same time, most of the room noise is blocked out—a definite win-win situation.
Good-bye World of Silence! Successfully Adapting to Wearing Hearing Aids
If you have followed the suggestions outlined above, you now have hearing aids that will best fit your needs. You realize that hearing with them won't be perfect, but you'll hear much better than you do now. What you need to do now is learn how to effectively adjust to wearing your new hearing aids so you won't rip them out of your ears in disgust and throw them in a drawer.In contrast to the opening scenario where the person attempted to wear his hearing aids home from the Audiologists' office, here is a better way to adjust to wearing them.
Sit down and relax in a quiet place in your home. Put your hearing aids in your ears and turn them on. Talk to yourself while you adjust the volume to a comfortable level.
Listen to the sounds around you. Do you hear the hum of the refrigerator? the creaking of your house? the sounds of a car driving by outside? the rustle of your clothes? Get used to them for they will again be a part of your life.
Learn to feel comfortable with your hearing aids. It's normal that your ears will feel full, (and probably hot and sweaty too) like you have something stuffed in them—because you do. If your earmolds hurt, go back to your audiologist to have them ground down a bit. Wearing hearing aids may feel uncomfortable to some degree, but they should never hurt.
On the first day, wear your hearing aids for only one hour. The second day: two hours, the third day: three hours. After that, add another hour a day until you are comfortable wearing them all the time. If this is too fast for you, just increase the time by a smaller amount, say 30 minutes a day.
To begin with, do not wear your hearing aids in noisy places. You need to be comfortable in quiet places first. Treat yourself to easy listening situations during your first few weeks of adjusting to wearing your hearing aids. Try not to listen to too much too soon. If sounds are too loud, turn your hearing aids down slightly. If your hearing aids begin to bother you, take them off and give yourself a rest. Put them on again later. You need time to get used to wearing them and to hearing sounds again. The key to success is to make haste slowly.
Read aloud to yourself. You may be horrified how loud or different your voice sounds. This is normal. Get used to it. This is how you really sound. Slowly you will come to like your "new" voice.
The sound of your phone ringing or the sudden ding-dong of your door bell may startle you. You may jump when doors slam, dogs bark or people cough. This too, is normal.
When you are comfortable hearing your own voice, talk to one other person in a quiet place. Have them sit between 3 and 6 feet from you.
When you are ready, wear your hearing aids outside and listen to the sounds around you. Try to identify birds singing, traffic sounds, rustling leaves, the sounds of your shoes scrunching on the sidewalk. Begin on relatively quiet streets and slowly build up to busy downtown streets.
Finally, but only after you are comfortable wearing your hearing aids in all other situations, are you ready to tackle difficult and noisy listening situations. In crowds and at parties, talk to one person at a time. Don't try to follow everyone at once. If the noise gets to you after a while, seek a quiet place. In restaurants, start with quiet, well-lighted ones. Gradually work up to noisier restaurants as you feel comfortable.
Adjust slowly and consistently to wearing your new hearing aids. You must be patient for it will take time. Remember, it takes from 30 to 90 days for your brain to adjust to the new sounds it is now hearing.
How well and how fast you adapt to your new electronic ears depends on several factors. These include: how bad your hearing loss is, the type of loss you have, how long you have had the loss, whether it happened gradually over many years or whether it was sudden, and how well your ears can discriminate different sounds.
Adapting to your new hearing aids may take a week or a month or a year—everyone is different. The important thing is to keep at it. Don't compare your progress with others.
If you only have a mild loss, you may adapt to your new aids the first day—it may be love at first sound. If your hearing loss is severe you likely will take much longer to adapt. The same is true if you have had a hearing loss for many years before doing anything about it.
However, when you finally adapt to wearing your hearing aids, something surprising happens. The day will come when you will actually feel undressed unless you are wearing your hearing aids. You realize just how much your hearing aids help you successfully cope in the hearing world. Without realising it, you and your hearing aids have become close friends indeed!
Wednesday, 10 August 2011
Industry Article - reading about over the counter hearing aid supply idea
This blog article from the Starkey web resource discusses the merits of an 'over the counter' type of service model in relation to the current delivery mechanism:
http://blog.starkeypro.com/bid/41481/Do-over-the-counter-hearing-aids-offer-a-quality-solution-to-better-hearing
'Hearing-impaired individuals have a variety of amplification options available to them. Audiologists help patients select the most appropriate hearing aids based on their hearing loss, lifestyle and listening needs, manual dexterity and a number of other factors. Financial constraints are often a consideration as well, so hearing aid manufacturers offer a wide selection of circuit types, including some more basic, economical choices.
In today's economy, consumers seem more concerned than ever about hearing aid cost. Not surprisingly, there has been an increase in the availability of inexpensive, over-the-counter (OTC) hearing devices. The price of an OTC instrument can range from under $50 to several hundred dollars each. While some of these devices might fit the FDA definition of "hearing aids" (FDA, 2007a; S874.3300), their distribution often does not meet FDA requirements. For instance, the FDA requires a person buying a hearing aid to be examined by a physician to rule out medical contraindications and a medical waiver must be signed if they choose not to obtain medical clearance. Most OTC devices are purchased in a retail store or over the internet, so the consumer never interacts with an audiologist and may never be asked for proof of medical clearance. Indeed, the authors of the current study found only one OTC manufacturer that asked consumers to sign a medical waiver prior to purchase. ......'
http://blog.starkeypro.com/bid/41481/Do-over-the-counter-hearing-aids-offer-a-quality-solution-to-better-hearing
'Hearing-impaired individuals have a variety of amplification options available to them. Audiologists help patients select the most appropriate hearing aids based on their hearing loss, lifestyle and listening needs, manual dexterity and a number of other factors. Financial constraints are often a consideration as well, so hearing aid manufacturers offer a wide selection of circuit types, including some more basic, economical choices.
In today's economy, consumers seem more concerned than ever about hearing aid cost. Not surprisingly, there has been an increase in the availability of inexpensive, over-the-counter (OTC) hearing devices. The price of an OTC instrument can range from under $50 to several hundred dollars each. While some of these devices might fit the FDA definition of "hearing aids" (FDA, 2007a; S874.3300), their distribution often does not meet FDA requirements. For instance, the FDA requires a person buying a hearing aid to be examined by a physician to rule out medical contraindications and a medical waiver must be signed if they choose not to obtain medical clearance. Most OTC devices are purchased in a retail store or over the internet, so the consumer never interacts with an audiologist and may never be asked for proof of medical clearance. Indeed, the authors of the current study found only one OTC manufacturer that asked consumers to sign a medical waiver prior to purchase. ......'
The main emphasis appears to be cost reduction within the current model, which I don't feel adequately acknowledges the longer term servicing and upkeep costs associated with hearing aids. Increasing disposability of hearing aids (Songbird etc) has only ever really ended up with dissatisfaction on the part of wearers. The concept of 'buying into' the process both in terms of product and metaphorically seems to have been lost on the authors.
Monday, 1 August 2011
Ambras, are they REALLY that good?
We've seen all the binaural features on the screen, all the possible adjustments and had the marketing material in our faces for almost a year now: so what's the score? Are the latest and greatest Phonak hearing aids really that good? and what distances them from the competition.
This little 'journey' (everything is a journey these days) started late last Autumn with the fairly spectactular launch of the latest Phonak offering. I'll be honest and say that I'm pretty luke-warm about launches as there is rarely anything that ground-breaking on offer, but in fairness to Jason and the team (plus a dramatic power-cut) they put on a good do.
I hadn't really expected to be impressed, but I was, reasonably so. Full binaural signal processing and sound transfer is the key here. Allowing two hearing aids to become one 'listening system' is the result. Scroll forward nine or ten months and there are a raft of satisfied customers out there, benefiting from the largely unique CROS system, the high-end aids, the middle and lower tiers too.
Mr PG is a 39 year-old bin man with huge asymmetry which was giving the health and safety people nightmares in finding a solution that would keep him in an active 'yard' role or awareness on the street. A Solana CROS has been key to delivering sounds from both sides, plus he likes the fact that he can answer his phone 'on the go' via the I-Com.
Mrs BG is a sprightly active 85 year-old ex musician who had never been satisfied with the performance of her old Starkeys especially in relation to music and listening to the TV. She wanted the 'best money could buy', so we opted for the Ambra ITE. As of now she's averaging 15 hours a day wear and has turned the subtitles off on her TV. She also uses the Pilot One remote with aplomb and says that the aids are very effective even when she converses with her Polish handyman/gardener who she was struggling with before.
That says it all really, looks like the Spice aids are working for the people who need them......
Now, where's the next launch going to be?
This little 'journey' (everything is a journey these days) started late last Autumn with the fairly spectactular launch of the latest Phonak offering. I'll be honest and say that I'm pretty luke-warm about launches as there is rarely anything that ground-breaking on offer, but in fairness to Jason and the team (plus a dramatic power-cut) they put on a good do.
I hadn't really expected to be impressed, but I was, reasonably so. Full binaural signal processing and sound transfer is the key here. Allowing two hearing aids to become one 'listening system' is the result. Scroll forward nine or ten months and there are a raft of satisfied customers out there, benefiting from the largely unique CROS system, the high-end aids, the middle and lower tiers too.
Mr PG is a 39 year-old bin man with huge asymmetry which was giving the health and safety people nightmares in finding a solution that would keep him in an active 'yard' role or awareness on the street. A Solana CROS has been key to delivering sounds from both sides, plus he likes the fact that he can answer his phone 'on the go' via the I-Com.
Mrs BG is a sprightly active 85 year-old ex musician who had never been satisfied with the performance of her old Starkeys especially in relation to music and listening to the TV. She wanted the 'best money could buy', so we opted for the Ambra ITE. As of now she's averaging 15 hours a day wear and has turned the subtitles off on her TV. She also uses the Pilot One remote with aplomb and says that the aids are very effective even when she converses with her Polish handyman/gardener who she was struggling with before.
That says it all really, looks like the Spice aids are working for the people who need them......
Now, where's the next launch going to be?
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