Looking for anyone with experience with helping pick out hearing aides. It’s hard for him to describe what he doesn’t like about them so I can’t provide much in the way of specific issues. One thing he has said was that they change how loud some things are compared to how they should be which I think he means they will make certain pitches louder than other pitches so something like setting spoon on glass plate will be loud but the sound of a low voiced man talking is quiet when normally the low voices are the only ones he can hear. He is the typical old geezer so it’s easier to list all the numbers in Pi than it is to get him to a doctors office.
We have tried 2 different very expensive aids costing thousands each, we tried the new apple ones, he tried countless magazine ads hearing aids and doesn’t like any of them. He’s a very straight forward man so it’s not his way of getting around using them or that he’s embarrassed. He wants to find a pair he likes but he is also a very picky man who was a mechanical engineer so I feel like his expectations can be a little high sometimes for things to be perfect.
Just thought I’d see what other people’s experiences were with hearing aides and if there’s anything anyone can recommend.
but he is also a very picky man who was a mechanical engineer so I feel like his expectations can be a little high sometimes for things to be perfect.
Approach this as an engineering problem. Engineering core principles start by defining: What problem are we trying to solve?
Further, good engineering is forming the right goal. If the goal is: “We want to be able to restore the hearing of a 70 year old man to that of an 18 year old one”, the we should reject the premise. Technology simply doesn’t exist yet that will do that. We need a less ambitious goal. Something like “How do we restore the ability of the 70 year old man to understand the spoken words of someone who he is seated in the same room with.” Now THAT is probably doable, but it comes with tradeoffs.
One thing he has said was that they change how loud some things are compared to how they should be which I think he means they will make certain pitches louder than other pitches so something like setting spoon on glass plate will be loud but the sound of a low voiced man talking is quiet when normally the low voices are the only ones he can hear.
This is a consequence of what resources in the human are left to work with in our 70 year old man. A lifetime of mild and moderate hearing damage and general aging process means that not only are the high and low audio spectrum reduced, but also specific frequencies are missing because the nerves for those frequencies are damaged and none functional. Many hearing aids will shift the register of a sound into a range that it knows the hearing aid wearer can still hear. This is why pitches are shifted and sound strange. One person with extreme hearing loss may only be able to hear spoke word as though it were Sesame Streets high trill voice, but make no mistake, they would make out the words and be able to converse with the other person.
One solution that was a GAME CHANGER for us was an external microphone.
Most of the middle and high end hearing aid brands have one or support one. They go by different names but they’re all the same:
- buddy mic
- companion mic
- partner mic
I had to find out about these myself looking for a solution like you were. No audiologists or hearing aid expert ever mentioned these to me and I have no idea why. These are small battery powered label mics that are paired directly to their hearing aids:
They’re not crazy expensive (a couple hundred dollars). These can be clipped to the lapel or set on a nearby table near the other speaker and they do a MUCH better job of picking up sound compared to the built in mics inside the hearing aids. The one we have for my loved one works this way. When it is vertical (like on a lapel) it is a narrow focused mic so it only picks up the voice very near the speaker’s mouth. This is great in a noisy room because it intentionally localizes the speech the person wants to year. When laid on its side it switches to omnidirectional picking up as much sound AROUND IT IN ALL DIRECTIONS. So if you’re at a large table, you set it in the center and can hear everyone speaking around it. While there are better solutions, in a pinch you can also place the microphone near a TV or other audio source if you’re with a group watching something on TV. This will let them hear it too and be a part of the shared experience.
If his hearing is so extreme he is not able to stay involved in conversations unless someone is yelling in his face, I STRONGLY encourage you to work with him to get some kind of solution in place. Advanced aging is an exercise in forced isolation. Your hearing falls away so you can no longer bring auditory input. Each of these isolates the person further. In the end you’re just left alone with yourself. Fight against this for as long as possible.
My loved one told me about the isolation they felt without being able to participate in the conversations. This is how I learned about this. For my loved one, this brought them back to who they were before the hearing loss. It was a bit cumbersome to turn the mic on and off sometimes, and the battery lasted something like 8 or 10 hours, so recharging is a thing too. All of that trouble is so worth it though for them gaining their ability to connect again. She uses it all the time now completely on her own and has no shame in telling people that they have to use it with her. This has helped especially well when dealing with medical professionals which old people have a lot of. She takes the mic out of her purse before the doctor arrives, turns it on, and hands it to them asking them to put it on their lapel. She is FULLY ENGAGED in the conversation and after a minute or so you even forget she has hearing aids and there is a microphone on the doctor. Ever single doctor or medical professional we’ve had loved having this mic when working with her. She is clearly able to understand everything they say with it. When she was in the hospital the regular staff knew about the mic and would automatically ask her if she’d like them to use it for that session. It made their jobs easier and her experience a thousand times better. We’ve had to chase after doctors that forgot they had it on to get it back a couple of times.
One more thing, because this is wireless and you easily forget about it. Take the microphone off when you step away to go to the bathroom. :)
I’ve worn hearing aids in both ears since I was young so I can understand. Its probably been the last couple of generations the tech has got to a decent place and that’s after nearly 30 years of wearing them.
The problem I find with most older people who acquire hearing loss later in life is shame or similar feelings, even if they say otherwise. If you have a good audiologist when you get hearing aids you’ll do real ear measurements. It can often take multiple trips to the audiologist, doing these test, to calibrate hearing aids properly. My partners mother is like this, where she hasn’t gone back since her initial fitting and as a result stop wearing her aids all the time.
My suggestion to anyone with relative like that is to do anything short of booking the appointment for them to get these real ear measurements done. Do them until the sound matches expectations. These device are expensive; so people have every right to take them back until they perform as expected. This includes sending the aids back and getting a replacement/different aid if needed. You wouldn’t drop several grand on a TV and just put up with it if the picture quality was shit. I have the phonak audeo which were expensive but sounds amazing, which is different for my degree of hearing loss.
Phonak and Signia are known brands with Signia (formerly Siemens) being in the space for a long time. If your country has it, try the government funded audiologist. Happy to answer any questions you may have.
Below is a photo of what a REM looks like, show your relative and ask if he’s had them. If not (change audiologist immediately) ensure they get them done until the hearing device perform as expected. Any time they don’t, tell him write down how and inform his audiologist (I would always forget stuff when I was at an appointment). Most audiologist are not only good at their jobs but passionate about it and will try their utmost best to rectify issues you bring to them.
They place this on your ear and then you put in hearing aids. They then play different tones/noises to monitor how you hearing aids perform. It may take multiple visits but it is worth it.
Totally agree. In the US- Real ear verification is actually required by law in several states. Unfortunately the laws about it are a little gray on details, but they at least require it.
Trial periods are also required by law in every state, but the time period varies. When I was in Texas it was 30 days, which is the minimum several states have. A few state offer longer periods.
My post was long so I failed to but thanks for mentioning mandatory trials. They’re definitely a huge factor and something we do here across the pond too.
who was a mechanical engineer
Tell him my greetings. I am an electrical engineer (I have even studied acoustics for several semesters) and I have made my jokes about mechanical engineers all my life. But I don’t think that they are actually stupid ;-)
He’s a very straight forward man
he is also a very picky man
He is right about it. They are bad. The sad truth is: they are all less than perfect, and hard to endure.
Scientists have improved them during the last 10 or 20 years, and they still have to improve them a lot more in the next 10 years or 20. Until then, everybody can only choose these current ones, that are less than good.
But these devices are even worse if they are not adapted to the person.
You can’t just buy them off the shelf and wear them like you do with a wooden leg, that has either the correct length or you cut off a little.
You need to adapt many different parameters before they start to be somewhat helpful. It is because hearing is super complex.
So regarding your question about the best device, it is neither the brand nor the price, but whether you (or your audiologist) can adapt it good to the person.
This will take some weeks of trying it out, and then adapt again.
This is the actual choice he needs to make:
Either have the stamina to let somebody adapt the devices for him, then try them for a few weeks, and then repeat this for at least three rounds of adapting and trying. Or let it all be, and grow old as a deaf man.
One thing I have been told by family who took several attempts to adopt hearing aids is to start at a low volume level. In addition, it takes several attempts to set the “levels” to what sounds right for a user. Most newer ones have an app that allows you to customize it yourself. Otherwise a good technician should be able to help tweak it.
It is a big change that is not easy to accept or get used for many people. I have had several people I know of the try, use, return cycle 2-3 times. Hope that helps.
This. A good audiologist will usually start the gain pretty low, like 30% otherwise it overwhelms your brain in a way that’s hard to describe but will mean you don’t like it. After a few months you can have the gain turned up.
But if you can’t get the settings tweaked you can just turn volume down as soon as they are turned on.
Close, but definitely not 30% volume. When we fit hearing aids a good audiologist would have asked you if you already wear hearing aids and other questions to know if we need to enable a very specific feature. Each brand calls it something different, but it is generally called “first time user adaptation.” It let’s us set an initial decrease percentage (normally 60-70% of the prescription volume) and we can then set a ‘target time’ of normally about 2 or 3 weeks, maybe 4 or 5 if they are extra old. Then the hearing aids will slowely turn up on their own over the time set. In the end, the person is as 100% volume and they shouldn’t have noticed. You can still do your own personal temp volume changes in the app and it doesn’t interfere with the progressive steps.
A good audiologist will then typically have you come back in 2 weeks, then a month, then at 6 months, then annually or as needed. Each appointment they should be checking several things and asking about the sound and volume levels and such, but specifically we can see where you are adjusting the volume to on average. Most manufacturers let us then just take your average adjustments and apply them to the prescription. So if you are turning it down 3 db on average every day, or if you just cut a little bass or push a little more treble, we can see that and just apply it to be permanent. This is why we encourage people to use the app as much as possible.
Now, all of this is also dependent on the person wearing the hearing aids all day. We get a lot of old people that insist they only need to wear them in very specific situations and then wonder why they never get used to them. It is always fun the first time the person finds out we can see how long the hearing aids are on every day. So they are like “yeah I totally wear them for a few hours every day. 4 or 5 hours, easy” then we tell them they are actually averaging about an hour.
I know Adam Savage uses a model of Jabra ones and did a recent video about hearing aids.
If there is a Costco near them get hearing aids from them. They’ve been very good about replacements with the warranty handy.
The Kirkland brand of hearing aids is the same as phonak. It is the same company. Sonova. The biggest two things are oing to be getting them fit by a good audiologist, and picking out a set that fits the needs of the person.
I think you’ve probably got the correct replies already (see an audiologist a few times), but I wanted to share two quick anecdote that might explain your Grandfather’s reaction.
I recently bought a pair of swim goggles with blue tint to wear when I go swimming with my kids. I leave them on for about 45 minutes before taking them off. When I take them off it’s almost overwhelming how vibrant some colors become. It’s almost like someone took the saturation slider and dialed it to 300. The white walls around the pool, the orange rash guard my youngest was wearing, etc. They all become almost extreme.
I have a pair of TWS earbuds that you can ‘calibrate’ to your ears based on what seems to be a crude test (detect a beep at a frequency over a background noise). The profile it generates is very bright. It’s very possible I’ve lost that much hearing, especially since we lose high frequency first, but it’s a bit jarring. I find myself not wanting to accept that reality. I’m approaching 40 and haven’t been around that many sustained loud things without hearing protection. I do kind of like the sparkle, but it seems a bit over the top so I tend to turn it off. Perhaps your Grandpa is experiencing something similar?
One thing he has said was that they change how loud some things are compared to how they should be which I think he means they will make certain pitches louder than other pitches so something like setting spoon on glass plate will be loud but the sound of a low voiced man talking is quiet when normally the low voices are the only ones he can hear.
I don’t have any experience here, but you can probably find yourself a software package – probably webpages out there that can do it – called a “tone generator” that can generate a tone at different frequencies and volumes that would let you check that. Can find the threshold of hearing for different frequencies, given the ability to do that.
I will say that normally, as one ages, one’s ability to hear high-pitched frequencies falls off. It might be that the hearing aid is aiming to compensate for that, if it’s amplifying higher pitches more than low. Or maybe he’s just used to having lost some high-frequency hearing and now it’s annoying to have that reverted.
But I don’t know what the current state-of-the-art is. I’d think that one could do the equivalent of what an equalizer does, set response at different frequencies.
Maybe have a sound that plays, plays a “frequency sweep” that should sound the same amplitude at all the frequencies to calibrate.
You only mention Apple ones.
kagis
Assuming this is the right thing, it looks like this is the Airpods Pro, with a “hearing aid” mode. They do apparently support a calibration option, and having different response at different frequencies:
https://www.apple.com/airpods-pro/hearing-health/
Assuming that he did calibrate them, maybe the process didn’t go well, and it’s mis-calibrated?
Neat!
In my other comment I address the specific issue that’s more common with hearing aids, which is overwhelming your brain with noice it’s not used to.
