Questions About Hearing Aids

 

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Hey everyone! Welcome back! Recently I got a few questions on hearing aids that I thought I’d share with you guys. So here we are with questions on hearing aids part 2! Ready? Let’s get started! First question: How do your hearing aids work? So the way it works is that sound enters these two little microphones, right at the top. I’m not so sure if you can see them that well in this video…

But sound enters the two little microphones, and it gets amplified. Once it’s amplified, it goes into this small clear tube right here. And into the earmold tube and then BOOM! Right into my ear. Next question: Can you adjust the volume on your hearing aids? Yes, you can! Usually, hearing aids have little volume controllers where you can turn the volume up or down. I’m not sure about all hearing aids, but mine have always had volume controllers. Next question: Why don’t all Deaf people wear hearing aids? Well for starters.

We don’t have to wear them if we don’t want to. Getting or wearing hearing aids is entirely up to the person who is Deaf/HoH. I mean like right now, I’m wearing my hearing aids, but I have some days where I choose not to wear them. It’s optional. Another thing to keep in mind is that hearing aids don’t work for everyone with a hearing loss. We all have different levels of hearing loss. Also, there are about four different types of hearing loss. I believe there is, Auditory Processing Disorder; there is a Conductive hearing loss, Sensorineural hearing loss, and Mixed hearing loss which is a combination of the last two. I’m not going to get too specific about each of those hearing losses, because I’m not an audiologist. But I am going to explain this the best I can. Okay, I’m about to get a little Bill Nye on you guys. Are you ready? Okay! The nerves in our ears, send the brain a crapload of information when it receives sound.

And that information is not just volume. And by volume, I mean how loud or quiet something is. One of the other things that our nerves send to our brain is information so we can understand speech. Now hearing aids are tiny microphones that help amplify sounds somebody might not be able to hear. And at times it might help somebody hear the speech, and hear somebody talking, but they won’t help the person understand speech. That’s a whole ‘another story. That’s why when somebody covers their mouth when they’re talking, or when they turn around to talk, I won’t have any idea what’s being said. Because even when I wear hearing aids, my hearing aids will only notify me that somebody is saying something. They won’t help me understand what is being said.

Question: What bothers you most about hearing aids? That is an excellent question. What bothers me most about my hearing aids is that people tend to assume that I can hear them crystal clear with them in. I can’t. Now personally, I have a severe/profound hearing loss. My hearing aids only help me pick up ambient sounds. So that means that when it comes to listening to somebody talk on the radio, or me talking to anybody, if there are no captions or if I can’t lip read, it just all sounds like muffled gibberish.

Like that. So even though I wear hearing aids does not mean I can understand you 100%. Last question: What do you like about them? What I love about them is that they help me hear certain sounds I usually don’t listen. But you know the real selling point of hearing aids is the fact that I can turn them off when you don’t want to hear to someone. I do it all the time. Alright guy’s, that’s it for this video! I do have a couple of other questions though that I didn’t answer, so there will be a part 3. That being said, make sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel, or add me on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter. And as always if anyone has any questions about hearing aids or about anything, feel free to leave them in the comments below, and I’ll be sure to check them out. Alright everybody, stay cool, and I’ll see you all later! (weird gibberish sounds) That’s what hearing people sound like to me.

 

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Hear Kurt’s Story – Oticon Opn hearing aid user

 

Hi, my name’s Kurt Munro, I’m 30 years old I’ve been a lifeguard on the Gold Coast for over 15 years now. I have severe hearing loss 50/55 percent in both ears, I have been since I was a little kid so it’s a big part of my life and I wouldn’t change a thing, to be honest, it’s a big part of who I am, my personality.

The school was tough, but I wish these hearing aids were out back when I was a kid, things are bit different but no complaints. Kurt has a very severe sensorineural hearing loss bilaterally, and then I’d fitted the Opn hearing aids for a while in when they first came into Australia, and I’d been doing quite well with the product, and I really liked it, so I wanted to put it on Kurt and see what his thoughts were and here he is today wearing them and it’s just been fantastic, very emotional. The first five seconds of trying the new Opn 1 hearing aids was the most emotional ten probably minutes of my life. It’s like something just switched and it was like ‘ah’ that’s what I guess sound’s supposed to sound like for normal people, it was really soothing and it’s something I wasn’t expecting, it’s just a really kind of soothing sound, and for the first time I was able to relax and not kind of concentrate on what that sound was, it was just, yeah, it was amazing. These pick up the sound from everywhere whereas I’m used to the more traditional ones where wherever you’re turning, the sound’s focused on there.

So you know there’s sounds… if people are having a conversation behind me I’m never usually able to hear them whereas now it’s like all ‘oh’! Just being able to interact with, you know, if you’re in a group with people all around you, it’s straightforward now. Something that I’ve never been able to do and even if you’re in the grocery store and you hear the microphone in the background, I can now hear that which is amazing. I guess having different feedback and different sounds with old hearing aids was always really difficult it’s exhausting you need to concentrate on every word that someone’s saying, and I needed to lip-read as well where are these it’s…it does take a few weeks to get used to having all the sounds around, but once you get used to it, it’s perfect. You know, for the first time I can have conversations with people and be relaxed and enjoy the conversation. And not work so hard to, you know, have a normal interaction with people. Kurt’s been struggling for the last two years I’d say we didn’t realize he became withdrawn and excluded himself from a lot of conversations especially by night time because he was so tired of trying to keep up through the day.

Six months ago his life was changed, and Opn opened his world, his new hearing aids his audiologist suggested he try them which he did, and it has changed his world. Yeah, my energy levels with these hearing aids compared to previous … it’s the most significant difference I’ve noticed and not just myself, my girlfriend and other people around me, you know, after a big family dinner I’m the first person to leave because I’m so exhausted and just trying to have a conversation with everyone and lip-read off people. Whereas with these it’s…I’m the last person to leave now, and I really enjoy having a conversation, and it’s a game changer for me because you know, I can now have energy, you know, when I have a conversation with people which, it’s massive.

He can now hear birds singing and waves and the rain, he hasn’t heard rain for a long time or footsteps, toilet flushing, all those things that we take for granted … or the lyrics to a song. He used to download all the words and then look at the words to see what the song was actually saying. When I got the hearing aids, I was driving home and connected the app and start listening to music and instantly… Dad was in the passenger seat, and I just bawled my eyes out, you know, for the first time I could understand lyrics in the song whereas previously I’d listen to the lyrics and then I’d have to Google lyrics you know to read the lyrics to understand the song and for the first time I could understand it all and it was my favourite song it was Ed Sheeran ‘Photograph’.

I’m a sucker for the romance so I just started bawling and then I told Dad and he started bawling and it was, it was amazing I guess for the last 15, 20 years I’ve never been able to pick up words in a song so that was amazing, yeah..

As found on Youtube

Conversations About Hearing Loss & Hearing Aids

 

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Question number one. When did you first– When did you first– When did you first realize that you had hearing loss?
Well, I think for a long time I blamed it on my husband because I always said that he mumbles. You know, when I had to keep asking people to repeat. I heard, I just didn’t understand everything. I was catching pieces, but it was certain tones that I wasn’t hearing. And I was doing, like, looking at her mouth. Trying to read her lips, I guess, I don’t know. And she asked me a question like, Mom, can you hear me? What are you doing, are you reading my lips? Well, you used to come in, and I wouldn’t have my hearing aid– I wouldn’t have hearing aids, and you’d say jeez Mom. Can you turn the TV any louder? How do you think your hearing loss impacted your relationships with others? Well, for one thing, before I didn’t feel like I was part of the conversation.

I kind of, you might say, pretended I was listening to what others were saying, but I never responded because I didn’t know for sure what they were saying. I did realize that when I was with a large group of friends or when I was in church I couldn’t hear what the pastor was saying. Do you remember any specific situations where my hearing loss was a concern or a challenge? Yeah, because I would have to turn and face you so you could read my lips. And I think you were agreeing to things that we were questioning why you were agreeing.

Well, sometime I’d just shake my head and nod because I don’t understand so– I know. And then I figured if I didn’t answer you would ask again and get closer. And then I would hear. And then you would hear, right. What made you decide to get help? Well, for one thing, I always was afraid I might get into a situation where I wouldn’t understand, or I had to ask again what they said. You know, that’s hard, that’s hard to have that going on. I think you pushed me. Yeah. Telling you-you need to go. Yes. And Dad telling you that you can’t hear him. Are you glad that you got hearing aids? Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. It didn’t take long for me to adjust to them. And at first, it was fun to tell people I had hearing aids.

I’m very glad I got them. I am very glad I got them. I don’t know what I’d do with them now; I don’t. And I’m getting to the point where now, even if I’m home alone all day, I’ll wear them. Things I’ve noticed differently, like, I can call you, and we can have a conversation now. I mean, I don’t– I don’t know why, if you had hearing loss, I mean real hearing loss, why you would hesitate to get hearing aids. I know we’re happier. I’m sure you are. We feel like you’re much safer now that you– You don’t have to do the same– Now that you can hear. Repeating things and I don’t have to keep saying what. I love you. I love you, too. Happy Mother’s Day. I love you. Bless you, Alex. Thank you. This has been fun to do.

How Does Speech Sound with Hearing Loss?

 

Alright, so let me show you how sensorineural hearing loss works and how it affects you. So we start off with a normal audiogram, as you can see here. As you can see, there are zero decibels of hearing loss across all frequencies. This is why you can hear me very clearly; you can hear all the consonants and all the words in my speech because there is no hearing loss at any frequency. Now, if you start to expose yourself to some loud noise, maybe not a lot, but just enough to cause a slight bit of damage, you will start to experience slight hearing loss. I am simulating here a 4,000 Hz 10-decibel reduction.

It could be 3,000 Hz; it could be 6,000 Hz; it could vary, depending on person to person, but very commonly it falls around the 4,000 Hz range, and you’ll start to hear something like this at a slight 10-decibel hearing loss. Now, as you continue to expose yourself to loud noise, this will get worse. You’ll start to fall under what is called mild hearing loss. Now there is nothing mild about this. Yes, they term it mild hearing loss because it can be much worse; however, the effects of it are quite severe.

As you can see here, there is a 30-decibel reduction at the 4,000 Hz range. And, although it is only a 30-decibel reduction, it is definitely enough to affect the quality of the speech. As you can tell, what I am saying sounds a lot muddier. It is not quite as crisp and clear as it was before, and in a noisy situation, it would be much more hard to understand what I am saying.

Now if you continue to expose yourself to loud noise, of course, this is only going to get worse. The dip at the 4,000 Hz range is gonna dip even further down. We are simulating a 50-decibel reduction here, at the 4,000 Hz range. As you can also tell by the graph, the reduction is starting to spread into the other frequencies around it too, causing you to lose hearing in all frequencies, just more particularly at the 4,000 Hz range.

At this moderate hearing loss level, speech is becoming harder to understand, and you are having to focus more on what I am saying. You can probably still understand me, but it is not as easy as it was, and you have to focus hard. This can get very tiring throughout the day, and in noisy situations, it is getting almost impossible to understand speech. If we continue to increase the hearing loss to 70 decibels at 4,000 Hz, we fall into what is known as a severe hearing loss. At this point, speech is almost intangible; what you do hear is mostly vowels, there are hardly any consonants in what you are listening to because most of those consonants fall around the 4,000 Hz range. And if you have a lot of loss in that range, you are not going to hear those consonants.

You are mostly going to hear vowels. So speech is going to sound mumbly and muffled, and it will be very difficult to understand. Unfortunately, this can get worse if you keep exposing yourself to extremely loud noise. Eventually, you are gonna fall into what is known as a profound hearing loss. This is at a 90-decibel reduction at 4,000 Hz. You can barely understand anything I am saying; it is mostly mumbling, and you pretty much are not hearing anything except the low tone vowels.

This is not ideal by any means. It is almost impossible to carry on a normal conversation this way; you will have to shout or speak very loudly to be able to understand people at this hearing loss. And, hearing aids are nearly a necessity well before this, if you want to hear a speech. So don’t ever let your hearing progress to this level. Ever. Because once it gets down to this level, there is no turning back.

As found on Youtube