I am now going to introduce you to your
presenter okay and it’s I’m going I want to come on up here and I’ll get your
powerpoint on the screen where we got the clicker okay so this is for
those of you who have a fan this is an mind lol she is the owner of Ultimate
Hearing and which is located in the Trader Joe’s shopping center Marshalls Trader
Joe’s and she is going to present today on smart
during its everything smart these days mm-hmm
okay thank you thank you Toni okay thank you for having me today I had a sheet
out front at the desk and I asked what do you want to learn from today’s talk
since no one filled out either sheet I assume that you don’t want to know
anything and I know that that’s not fair because you all came to gather
information and hopefully the title is the thing that kind of attracted you as
Tony just said everything is smart to these days well we want to keep getting
smarter and that’s what I’m going to talk about the first thing that I want
to do is give you a very very brief overview of hearing we have a variety of
people in here some that have been coming to all the meetings and this is
kind of like boring the others say oh I didn’t know what is going on up there so
I’m gonna go through this very quickly but I want you to understand that
hearing is very complex what is happening right now
is the sound is going down the ear canal hitting the eardrum
vibrating three little bones causing a fluid in that snail-like structure to
make electrical impulse transmissions and that electrical signal is being sent
up to your brain the left ear is going to the right side of your brain the
right ear sound is going to the left side of your brain they’re talking to
each other and in real-time you’re understanding and comprehending amazing
what’s really amazing is that all of the hearing is being done by an organ in
your body that’s the size of a pea so take your fingertip and put your little
thumb at the top of your fingernail and that is the size of the organ of hearing
pretty amazing so because that organ is so tiny because it’s so tiny there’s
many factors that are important to it and we’re going to kind of breeze
through those quickly but I wanted you to see this diagram because although
hearing is complex we kind of get lost in the structure part and we forget
about what’s happening up in the brain this diagram shows the blue and the red
and there is actually a portion in our brain that is dedicated to hearing
amazing it is all lined up it’s all structured in such a precise way that
when you have a disruption to the system the body tries to compensate
eight and fill in that area that has been disrupted so I want you to
understand as frustrated as you can get when it comes to your hearing you have
an amazing body and amazing structure set up there so there’s many things
along the pathway though that can disrupt that signal getting up to the
brain the number one health concern for seniors over the age of 65 hypertension
high blood pressure why do you think that that would be such a factor when it
comes to hearing anybody want to say what did we say about that little organ
right the size of a pea okay that organ the blood flow in and out of that organ
is crucial if that organ doesn’t get the blood the oxygenated blood flow that it
needs the little hair cells inside of that organ start to die or atrophy so
think of a field of hey you’re growing something out in the field and if you
don’t water it richly from the ground it can start to die and it’s how long those
same kind of pathways that you have to think when it comes to hearing that’s
why as we get older we get hearing loss it’s usually not that the hair cells
have worn out it’s that they didn’t get enough oxygenated blood and they start
to atrophy in other cultures such as in the Mediterranean where they have a
little bit better diet and they exercise a little bit more we don’t see as much
hearing loss with aging so what can you do for yourself exercise drink water eat
healthy all the things that we don’t like to do but they really do make a
difference the other thing to just let you know diabetes hearing loss is twice
as common with people who are diabetic again it’s the way that the
body is absorbing the nutrients and processing the sugars and pre-diabetics
show 30% higher rate of hearing loss than those with normal blood sugar so
something if you are diabetic let your doctor know if you feel like you have a
hearing loss so that he can at least be aware of it but there’s a lot of other
factors that affect hearing and comprehension that are not hearing loss
related and I just want you to look at this list because these are factors that
affect comprehension okay so we talked about hearing and then we’re talking
about comprehension hearing is the act of the sound going through the organ of
hearing to get up to the brain but it’s the brain that does the comprehension
and the understanding so when I have patients come in and if English isn’t
their first language they may have a little bit more difficulty with
comprehension would you agree right if your English is a second language if I
start using words but you’re not familiar with it might take your brain a
slip salt a split second longer to understand if you’re native to the area
or a foreigner again local slang different words that can affect
comprehension articulation if I kind of slang my words that’s kind of hard for
me to do but if I do that it makes it a little bit harder in order to get the
sounds clearly up to the brain lung capacity how would lung capacity affect
comprehension oxygen flow if I’m kind of a breathy
speaker and I don’t breathe from my diaphragm I can’t get as much out and so
I don’t come through as loud okay so lung capacity if we breathe from
the diaphragm we have more oxygen in our lungs our voice will carry better so
those people who have COPD and other issues with their lungs and heart might
not be able to enunciate and get as much energy out when they’re speaking visual
cues we know that right the eyes and the ears work together all of our senses
working together and so when we have macular degeneration or other glaucoma
other issues visually we feel like maybe our hearing isn’t as good as it used to
be and it’s because those systems are working together musical background who
in here is a musician okay did you know that you’re really helping yourself with
music music stimulates the whole brain the whole cortex gets used and musicians
have a much more refined ability to discern differences in sounds makes
sense right if you’re playing an instrument you got to listen to certain
keys that is kind of subliminal training so if you want to help improve your
comprehension start listening to a little bit more music even if you have
it slightly in the background not so that it interferes with the speech but
having it on you’re giving your brain more stimulation the level of education
and the reason I say the level of education is that people who have a
higher level of education usually have what a larger vocabulary so if you have
a larger vocabulary when it comes to comprehension your brain can more
quickly fill in different words that it may be missing physical
fitness we talked about that a little bit
exercising oxygen flow helps with the stimulation of the blood flow which will
also help with overall comprehension right by that box that says diet I kind
of talked about that and then the speed of speaking we all know that if we slow
down and just speak at a little bit slower rate sorry slower rate that we
will be easier to comprehend but if we’re like our grandkids and we start to
talk really fast then it makes it really hard right so even though I’m
articulating I’m still producing the sound at a good level the speed is a
huge indicator so I know that Tony normally goes through this in the
beginning but as a reminder when you encounter somebody and you tell them
that you have a hearing loss they look at you like a dead a deer in the
headlights right what they don’t know what to do so they start talking louder
right that does not help with the comprehension you guys can all ascertain
that so the biggest thing you can do is to tell them I just need a little bit
more time to process so if you could just slow down a little bit it makes a
big difference is the speed at which I’m speaking right now comfortable for
everyone is everybody understanding what I’m saying good
okay so although hearing loss is the second most prevalent health condition
and seniors between hypertension and arthritis although it’s common it is not
healthy to go untreated okay one of the main reasons that hearing loss goes
untreated there was just an article in this month’s AARP magazine and the
writer said that it was social stigma she felt that it was because hearing
loss has a negative connotation to it and she then that’s why people are not
wearing hearing aids and I disagree the stigma of hearing loss in a
most recent study I was just at a conference last week the young
generation today doesn’t even think about hearing loss as being a negative
stigma why do you think that is so many people have them how about this speak so
fast themselves how about do you see them walking around with stuff in their
ears all day long yeah they had headphones on they have
Bluetooth devices on they don’t think it’s unusual that you have something on
your ear but one of the biggest factors that has helped improve the negative
stigma is that hearing aids work oh my gosh they’re not like grandma’s hearing
aids that we think of in the past where which were the big clunky things or
looked like she had a piece of glue or bubble gum stuck in her ear and
everybody could see it from a mile away most of you looking at hearing aids has
something that’s very discreet most people can’t even tell we often say that
a hearing aid is less conspicuous than a hearing loss right if you can hear
people are not looking in your ear to see if you have something in there
that’s when you can’t hear that they’re like what the heck what’s going on right
so I just want to encourage you that doing something about hearing loss is
very important we know that if you don’t studies after studies and Stephanie will
definitely go into this in October or November when she speaks but depression
isolation frustration we don’t need to focus here on the negative you guys kind
of are aware of this but just know that there is a total relation between the
amount of stimulation your brain receives and your overall physical
health and mental well-being does that make sense okay we’re going to go into
that a little bit deeper here how about that fact is that not a fun one how
about the brain can’t remember what it doesn’t hear duh
of course so if the brain cannot remember what it doesn’t hear why would
you expect to be able to remember and recall and participate in a conversation
if you weren’t getting all the stimulus it can’t happen so the more hearing loss
present means the less information the brain is receiving going back to that
AARP article I feel that the main reason that people don’t do something about
hearing loss earlier is because insurance doesn’t pay for hearing aids
so we wait until we have to get them and everybody knows we need them before we
do something about it and I am working with Tony and some
other audiologists and trying to encourage our local senators and
congressmen to do something about it to pass a bill because hearing loss
although it’s the number two health concern for seniors we have a really
really tiny voice on Capitol Hill the American Medical Association is so
strong they don’t want to give up their piece of the pie so audiologists have
gone on to become a doctor now you’re a doctor of audiologist audiology as of
2007 so I have a master’s degree in hearing sciences they now have a
Doctorate you’ll see an AUD I was grandmothered in so I didn’t have to go
through that it would not have changed the profession of what I’m doing it
would have been more about operating operations being an audiologist in the
operating room or doing cochlear implants and things that I wasn’t going
to do anyway but I want you to know the audiology profession has take
step two try to be the doctor so that you can come directly to us it’s called
direct access there’s a bill right now in Congress that’s talking about direct
access as it is right now you have to go to your physician if it is a medical
condition in order to get the hearing test paid for if you are coming just so
you can get hearing aids and get tested Medicare doesn’t think that that should
be paid for and they won’t pay now I know some of your secondary insurances
do cover hearing tests and are starting to get a little bit more involved in
that and that’s all well but they’re not getting reimbursed for it they’re just
giving that to you in order to get you into their network same thing with the
hearing aids but what we need to do is we need to band together and have a
voice on Capitol Hill to say if we would be proactive in hearing if we would
actually do something at a younger age we would be able to prevent cognitive
decline some dementia Falls depression isolation all the things that are
covered through Medicare but not the source the source is hearing loss and
it’s not covered so be prepared come the fall that we will be doing more about
this as far as trying to get a voice I have made a video and sent it to Mimi
Walters to ask her to sponsor a bill in order to do this so that’s kind of a
side note but a very important one okay so getting back to hearing loss
therefore more effort needed to stay engaged in comprehend okay the lack of
stimulus makes you have to work harder do you enjoy coming to these meetings
it’s kind of nice to be able to come to a meeting when you can actually hear and
comprehend what’s be said if you can’t understand me excuse
me you can read it and I really appreciate Tony and the effort that she
makes in order for you to feel like you have a place to come with other people
who are experiencing what you’re experiencing but what we’re going to
talk about now is a little bit more on how to get smarter so here is something
that I know you guys are all looking for the Holy Grail you’re all looking for
that one thing that’s going to make life so much better when it comes to hearing
and I hate to say I don’t think I have it today the reason is is that there is
nothing scientifically available right now to regenerate the nerve cells in our
ears they’re working on it boy are they working on it they’re looking at hair
follicles from jellyfish because you know a jellyfish is tentacles with all
the little fine hairs on the end they regenerate themselves and they’re
actually implanting those kinds of hair cells inside of animals to see if they
could get them to regenerate so have hope
we’ll keep pressing forward but until then we’re going to work on the exterior
devices we’re going to look at the hearing aids themselves hearing aids
help replace the missing information and the way that they measure how much
effort you are exerting is through something called pupil amma tree think
of that pupil amma tree they did a test and they looked at how dilated your
pupils were when you were comprehending when you were listening so if you were
leaning in and you had to really concentrate your pupils are more dilated
and so what they are less dilated they’re more restricted and so that is
how the these tests to determine some of the
statistics on ease of hearing hearing aids will all agree have changed and to
mate they’re now automated and they make intelligent operations so no more pots
who had hearing aids with pots potentiometers come on I know you did
yeah there’s a few of you raising your hand so potentiometers are these little
things on the inside of the hearing aid and Isaac wouldn’t know because he’s not
been around that long but I used to sit there with a little screwdriver and
adjust them and then say how does that sound does that sound better can you
tell the difference because that’s all we had back in the day 20 30 years ago
was that the hearing aid was amplifying the sound but only one or two little
things could make an adjustment now the hearing aid on the right side over a
hundred thousand calculations per second I just went to a conference last week a
new hearing aid coming out with quote artificial intelligence Oh what does
that mean it means that when you put your hearing aid on and you make
adjustments it’s going up to the manufacturers cloud and they are
capturing what you’re doing and what kind of an environment you’re in so that
they can have the hearing aid more refined and make those adjustments for
you without you doing them so just kind of like a car that drives itself a
hearing aid that actually adjusts itself even more than it does today things to
think about of how technology is doing so much more so smart your needs they’re
working to replace that information that’s being missed internally so most
of you I’m sure have had a hearing test and the majority of you I would assume
have a moderate to severe hearing loss or greater so there’s a lot of
information that the brain is just not receiving so
the purpose of the hearing aids is to replace that so if we look they are many
computers but the thing is they are trying to replicate what your brain does
naturally think about that how can we get in a device to replicate what will
you do naturally it’s really hard and the thing is is that everybody has
different needs right if I wore a hearing aid I’m going to give you a
scenario of what I’m thinking about I have a hearing aid on three different
people if I’m in a restaurant and I am the waitress I need to hear the speech I
need to hear the cooks I need to hear who came in the front door I have a
certain scope of what I need the hearing aid to do it finds the Busboys I don’t
necessarily want to hear all that sound I just want it to be more comfortable I
need to know if somebody calls my name but the clanking of the dishes would be
really irritating and so I would want my hearing aid in that situation to perform
a little differently if I’m the dishwasher guy in the back and I am
scraping dishes or the cook I’m going to have different needs and if you’re the
person sitting at the table you also have different needs does that make
sense we want the hearing aids all to be doing
different things so in the past we have the hearing aid and it just did one
thing an amplified sound now the hearing aids are starting to get to the point
where they can actually tell or sense what environment you’re in and
automatically change to that environment to try to help you with your
comprehension so they’re making all these calculations thinking okay if I’m
in this situation they want this down they want this up and they are good the
hearing aids are getting so much better but we have three
that hearing is very complicated and it requires the physical component as well
as the intellectual component and what do I mean by that so as much as we want
the hearing aid to be doing the work we want that Holy Grail the bottom line is
the purpose of a hearing aid is to give the brain the cleanest clearest signal
to process and then it’s up to our brain to do the work so there’s the
intellectual component you have a very active part in your hearing when you say
the hearing aids don’t work I can appreciate you saying I’m struggling
it’s not working for me but I want you to understand the hearing
aid is an aid it’s not a cure-all but they are getting so much better at
picking out what is speech and amplifying it and what is background
noise and reducing it so that you have the best chance to get the comprehension
but I do want you to know it doesn’t come naturally right we all know that
but it’s getting so much better on rather than what it was
so again smart hearing aids are going to give the brain the cleanest clearest
signal and to provide the best signal-to-noise ratio so right now
there’s some kind of noise going in the background that just changed our
signal-to-noise ratio but because the microphone is amplifying louder than
that noise floor it didn’t really affect our comprehension but if I wasn’t on a
microphone that noise might been a little bit more invasive right so how
are hearing aids getting smarter there’s a couple of ways number one is the
hearing aids today most of them can now connect to your
iPhone so who’s afraid of technology raise your hand
hey afraid of Technology okay quite a few hands who in here has either a
smartphone or an an iPhone or an Android who happened here has a smartphone look
at that look around that’s great who uses them okay so have you have them
some of them you don’t use someone who feels comfortable with their phone okay
the majority of you feel comfortable so one of the ways that the iPhone or the
smartphone is an advantage is because when you take a phone call the message
comes in to both ears haha how does that help when I answer a regular phone what
happens one ear or if I’m on a speakerphone what happens to ears but
what there’s distance between the phone and my ears and everybody else hears the
conversation with today’s smartphones when you get them hooked up you hear the
conversation right into your ear it’s quiet
nobody else hears the conversation but you and so some people will say well
I’ve got that in my car I use it in my car well what’s the disadvantage of the
car number one everybody in the car hears your conversation and how many
people sit in the car and keep their conversation going because they still
want to talk but they’re already at their destination so when you have the
phone connected to the hearing aids you take your phone with you so you can be
one of those quote weird people who talk to themselves in the grocery store
because you’re carrying on a conversation and people don’t see the
phone because it’s down here and they’re not hearing anything but your hearing
aids are doing the work for you the other way the
the smartphone’s are the hearing aids are getting smarter is that you can
actually turn the microphones of your hearing aids off with your phone you can
do this all manually but it’s so much easier to see it on a phone but you can
actually turn the microphones of the hearing aids off and then hear just the
conversation the outside sound doesn’t affect you as greatly because you’re
only hearing the phone conversation so if you were stranded or you’re in a
noisy restaurant and you need to take a call you can turn the microphones off so
both of those scenarios improve the signal-to-noise ratio we’re allowing the
signal which is the speech to be louder than the noise or the background okay so
the bottom line is when you’re getting hearing aids it’s all about that
signal-to-noise ratio right now the signal is coming through nice and loud
and the noise is very low and so we have an optimal environment and this is the
kind of environment we’d like to have all the time right
well with some accessories and your smart phones you can get this it’s
available and before just so I’m getting a little ahead of myself but before you
used to have to wear something like this around your neck right
everybody knew well we tried to convince you that it wasn’t so bad and you know
it’s got a t-coil and you could do everything here now you can do all of
that with this everything that is incorporated into something like this
and this is called a streamer this connects to your hearing aids it allows
you to connect to the phone it allows you to turn the volume up and down it
allows you to mute the hearing aids all the things I just talked about it’s now
available in a phone so now you can be just as I
don’t want to say disruptive that’s not the word but you can hang with your
grandchildren in just a second because you could be pulling out your phone at
the table too but you’re making adjustments to your hearing aids instead
it’ll be the past around sure real quick question are they backward compatible no
okay when I say he’s asking are they backward compatible he means can those
things go into previous versions of hearing aids and for the majority of the
manufacturers the answer is no when it comes to Widex they are one of the only
ones that do have a system where you can wear a little or guy around your neck
and connect to your phone but anything that’s wireless you have to have the
technology in that hearing aid in order to be wireless meaning nothing around
your neck so if your hearing aids are already set up to use one of the dongles
yes there are apps for Widex with their products there is not not an app for the
Otakon streamer other manufacturers I’m not overly sure they also allow you to
turn up the volume the other thing that they they can do is you can actually do
hearing therapy on your phone into your hearing aids and it’s free okay so I
know some of my patients are here in the audience and I know that they would all
testify that using hear coach a free app from Starkey you can do it with your
hearing aids on and if you don’t have the smart hearing aids you can just do
the app it’s up there here coach ata our coach you would go
into your smartphone go into your app store and download here coach it’s an
application where you do hearing therapy you retrain your brain on how to hear
sounds in quiet and then they start to add background noise and gets much more
complicated something else that’s available is a connect clip these are
little things that are starting to become available again all wirelessly
but if Tony were to put on the connect clip I could talk she could talk to me
in a noisy restaurant and I could hear her right into the hearing aids then I
could also mute the microphones of my hearing aids if I only wanted to hear
her okay so this is how the technology is getting better
number one it’s getting stronger in the processing of how it pulls the words
from the background noise and number two it’s getting better on the accessories
and the apps that allow you to have control over your hearing and that
little connect clip that she’s got goes up to 65 feet so you could have your
pastor or your rabbi or your minister where the clip and it would go right
into your hearing aid so hearing aids are getting smarter because they allow
you to stay more connected to the people you love and want to communicate with
right so the other thing that having an improved signal-to-noise ratio and
getting more stimulation to the brain is that your conversations are much more
spontaneous more confident and more memorable and I do know that I have a
few patients here in the audience who have been using the smart technology
and have given me their stories I don’t know if any of them are feeling
confident enough if they would like to come up if you want to raise your hand
and you want to come up and tell them something about how you benefited with
your hearing aids that’s great if you don’t I’ll kind of anonymously
tell a story or two does anybody want to come up no okay you’re okay
you can stand up so let me just say Nancy has a significant hearing loss
she is just about due for cochlear implants but her hearing aids are
helping her until that point so go ahead I’m still working in the age of 65 I couldn’t hear my boss at the end of the
table asking me a question this is significant so I already got a hearing
aid dispenser and that was the beginning to account and I couple more years over
the year since then I have dragging me in touch the patterns that I need in my
hair for your information and sweet I will be 91 yeah
and I feel better now here so I did when I started but I have to get him a lot of
the credit for that because she has worked diligently with me I have
progressed through the various technology I worked for years on
computers and I had reached a point a few years ago where I couldn’t even use
the computer my brains just beat up for challenges in the past two years I have
made several groups in my church I’ve spoken publicly for a number of things
and it’s because a technology that’s available to do she told me when I first
started going to her that I’m here like with my ears I’ve heard them with my
brain and that was kind of a slap in the face because I think my very but I have
to tell you that with the improvement of each time I my technology in my babies
is everything gets better in this last year my health has improved I can
exercise longer I can make it more way I can minor one housework all of these
things have helped and my smartphone now when I can’t get to church I can sit
there and turn it up and down so that the music is okay and when it’s what I
do and when it’s not loud not right Rueda
today is the first time that I could come to this meeting and have a read
what is being said I have listened over my t-coils okay listen to my hearing
aids and I have used my phone to up and down the different voices it’s been
amazing and I’m thankful for that a lot more thank you you know Nancy and she
doesn’t I asked her doesn’t mind me sharing she has a severe to profound
hearing loss so she’s not one who says oh well my hearing loss is too bad
because she has a significant hearing loss
she needs the cleanest clearest sound going to the brain when I was in
graduate school as an example we had a learned that there was a class of deaf
children and they are hard of hearing and they put them next to the gymnasium
because why they can’t hear anyway oh my gosh
total opposite right they don’t need the worst listening environment they need
the best listening environment and so what I want to encourage you is to think
about when you’re getting hearing aids it’s about getting the cleanest clearest
signal up to that brain so Tony did you have did you want to make a comment on
there Alex do you want to say something my personal experience is that when you
have a hearing loss it is it can be exhausting if it’s not properly I’m not
quite as eloquent either that’s lady that I do on the st. since I had my
other kind and learning all the things about it I can’t be more grateful for
all of the things available to me to learn you know I don’t marinate don’t be
here now it’s my problem they are wonderful what a wonderful I
don’t need to be advertising for one particular Baudette but I own and I’ve
had wonderful results I can hear more acculturated plays it means that I’ve
ever heard before and I feel more like one of the people attending I used to
feel like an outsider and not anybody here but it does take time to learn all
about it because I’ve noticed quick technology as some people are so
repetition is important I spoke with one of my friends there isn’t one of the
kind of the old approach to one of the groups and she was in a play and very
very a lot of dialogue and afterward and so proud of you however in the world
did you remember all of that and she made practice practice practice so I
guess that’s going to take what I have to do to get the ultimate what is
available to me but I really do think what it kind for coming up and for all
of their research and knowledge about what I needed and Thank You Ann for
introducing it thank you I have one more but thank you give her a
round of applause I’m gonna tell you one more story up we’ve got one more
somebody in the back I think it was Daniel he’s got is he injuries I have
serious hearing loss my talking too loud or is it just me I’m getting an echo I’m
giving thought to do hearing aids and gave me to try about a month ago and I
have for two weeks and I was absolutely stunned by the fact that I can actually
determine where noise was coming the direction and the clarity was so
much better on that new hearing aid and I would’ve blown away when she told me
that when I put that hearing aid in I can start my coffee in the morning yeah
I wanted to discuss that yeah he’s he is telling the truth
Tony from the man confronts the otic on hearing aids have a app in them
that’s called if if this then that we haven’t even explored how it’s going to
be used but Otakon one of the manufacturers has secured that
technology in their hearing aid so right now the way that we use that technology
is if your battery goes low you could send yourself a text message or you
could send your daughter an email to say pick me up some batteries it would
happen automatically as soon as it got set up that would happen she would be
coming with batteries before you knew it the same thing though he was talking
about with smart houses sorry we’re getting some reverb is that
you can have your coffee in the morning and when you close your battery door it
would start your coffeemaker so it’s I’m serious that’s the type of
technology we’re getting into so one of the things that I want to touch on
because I know this becomes a very sensitive topic hearing aids are made
different high-price hearing aids does not mean quality just because you pay
for five six thousand dollars for a set of hearing aids doesn’t mean you’re
getting the best quality and I really want you to be educated consumers and
that’s one of the things that Tony really works on is make sure you get
your subjective experience and your objective experience measured what do I
mean by that you look at the bottom there’s two cars they both get you’re
from to point B do you think there’s a price
difference between those two cars yeah why they both do the same job
what is the difference style the style the quality of the components that it
was made with right if you make a car on the left and you go 0 to 60 do you think
the car on the right could do that faster yeah why they’re both cars with
engines why because the motor inside of it is designed different okay if you got
in an accident which car would you like to be in the one on the left or the one
on the right really you want to be some people want to be on the one on the left
because it’s a convertible that way because the one on the right is
the the sports car the little Mercedes that should stop faster quicker respond
better right you could avoid the accident right with the one on the right
the one on the left you have to have a better reaction time somebody already
took my line there the same thing is with hearing aids how they’re made
matters there is reasons that there are hearing aids that have the quietest
circuit the best wind and noise reduction the longest battery life the
way the hearing aid separates the speech from the background noise that is the
difference of why some of the people here today are saying I love my hearing
aids because they actually work so when you’re purchasing hearing aids you
really need to ask the person that your person is purchasing them from why did
they tune the hearing aids they do why are you selling this brand why do you
think that this model is best for me that is
something that you have a right to know so the first thing and we’ve talked
about this many times pick the right provider get referrals just make sure
you have an educated decision as to why you go where you go it’s no different
than when you pick your doctors you don’t go into your orthopedic surgeon
and ask them so what brand of knee replacement are you putting in my leg
right you don’t you know some people say I do okay well good because there’s
enough information out there to know is a titanium is a steel is it going to be
this is it going to be that that’s the kind of information you could and should
have when you’re going in to buy a hearing aid you need to know enough
about it so that you can relay your needs to your provider but the bottom
line is as an audiologist with 30 years of experience I have a hard time keeping
up on all the technology I just went to a conference last week I’m going to
another one in two weeks there is so much information that as a professional
I have a hard time just keeping up with it how would you expect that you should
know you shouldn’t that’s the job of the professional that you go to see and you
should ask them why are you picking this hearing aid for me so you need to trust
that the person has the education the experience and the empathy to make your
world better through improved hearing so when you purchase something it should
make it better it should make it easier and it should make you healthier okay if
something is better it means it takes less effort so going to that pupil amah
tree right I shouldn’t have to concentrate as hard I should be able to
relax I should be able to close my eyes even just enjoy I could start to have
spontaneous calm stations with people the other thing is
that it should make you healthier you should be aware you should be able to
localize better to where sound is coming from I should be able to hear or it
should be my expectations should be realistically told to me Nancy said for
the first time I can eavesdrop remember when you said that she said my neighbors
went through my window and I didn’t want to listen but I heard them she’s like I
couldn’t believe I could eavesdrop now the healthy side of that is what I
could hear somebody walking by my window so I wouldn’t be surprised if they
knocked on my door right I’m aware of my world around me how many people have
issues with balance a lot of us because it’s the balance system in the hearing
system are in that same bony structure our balance comes from our eyes our ears
and the bottom of our feet okay so if one of those we have some neuropathy in
our feet or we have some hearing loss or some visual or we have all three you’re
going to be not as stable the hearing is one of the most important portions of
our balance because we can localize we know better in time and space where we
are and that is one of the biggest things that I think has helped Nancy is
that she’s really been more aware of what’s happening around her and the way
that the hearing aids processes the sound so I just I know that we want to
take some questions I want to be sensitive that to that we’ve got just a
little bit of time the main thing is as you can tell I did not mention specific
hearing aid manufacturers and I want to be sensitive to other colleagues and
professionals but I want you to know when Antonius talked about this when you
buy a hearing aid know why they choose the hearing aids they do okay
I will tell you not to dis Costco Costco’s business model works
really well for Costco what does that mean it means they sell a moderate
product at a moderate price what they don’t tell you is that 72 percent of the
people who previously bought their first hearing aid from Costco
said they would never go back to for their second why because moderate
doesn’t work in background noise it works in quiet and it can work in a
little bit of noise but when you get into background noise that’s when the
difference between the car on the right and the car on the left show up so when
you’re looking at hearing aids there are different operations Kaiser is connected
with Siemens connect hearing aid is with Phonak here USA is with Siemens you got
to know why people are buying or telling you the hearing aids that they are and I
just want to somebody gave me this and I forgot to mention it they asked a
question about Audigy a 4-page insert here on Audigy hearing aid and I’m not
going to open this up but well I’ll tell you is Audigy certified means
proprietary software what does that mean it means you can only go to that office
even though they sell an otacon it’s an otacon AG X and a GX is the Audigy brand
so what does that mean it means you can only go to that office and if you don’t
like the person up that office so you want to change the next office is about
40 miles away and that’s what you get when you go to somebody who’s got
proprietary software and so that’s what that is
Tony proprietary software printer hearing aids could also be called
blocked hearing aids yeah locked and I just brought it in today there was an
article here about the Falls follows getting locked hearing
aids so it’s back here if anybody’s interested so what she means by locked
hearing aids if you go to miracle there you get miracle your hearing aids if you
wanted to go somewhere else you can’t you’re locked into that one which is
fine if that’s what you want that’s fine I’m just letting you know kind of the
pros and cons but let’s wrap it up here yeah I was just going to say I new to
the t-coil and I’m eating a buzzy that’s because you’re sitting next to the wall
okay this electrical equipment that explains it okay so let’s call it I know
you people have buses to catch so let’s wrap it up and thank you for your time we make the donations help to the
hearing well club what a great question that is I love that question down to the
hearing well clubs please enjoy your your little
bag of goodies those are from some of the manufacturers and I’m available for
questions