Forever Young: Five Ways Treating Hearing Loss Can Revitalize Your Life!

The Better Hearing Institute just came out with this article and I think it is very good and enlightening as too the effect of hearing loss on today’s baby boomers.  It certainly hit close to home for me so I wanted to share this with all of you. 

Forever young: 5 ways treating hearing loss can revitalize your life
 
Listen up, boomers: Do you want to stay active? Vibrant? Socially engaged? Professionally successful? Most of us do.

So maybe it’s time to do something about your hearing.

Chances are, if you’re like many baby boomers, you’ve rocked your way through your fair share of concerts, night clubs, and ear-blasting parties. And you’ve enjoyed years of other noisy recreational activities to boot. Simply: You’ve been enjoying life. You’ve spent decades doing it. And it’s been loud.

So now, it’s not always so easy to hear the conversation around the table at the restaurant or dinner party – maybe not even in the conference room at work or on those teleconference calls.

Face it. All that enthusiastic living has been hard on your ears. And now they’re screaming for your attention.

You should give it to them.

In fact, addressing hearing loss is one of the best things you can do to improve your quality of life and keep up a youthful pace.

Fortunately, for most people with hearing loss, today’s state-of-the art hearing aids can help. In fact, eight out of 10 hearing aid users say they’re satisfied with the changes that have occurred in their lives due to their hearing aids.

Many boomers are surprised to learn that dramatic new technological advances have revolutionized hearing aids in recent years. Many hearing aids are virtually invisible, sitting discreetly and comfortably inside the ear canal. And they adjust to all kinds of noise environments, picking up sound from all directions. Some are even waterproof.

Perhaps best of all, seamless connectivity is now the norm. Today’s hearing aids are wireless and stream sound from your smartphone, home entertainment system, and other electronics directly into your hearing aid(s) at volumes just right for you.

Here’s what getting a hearing test and using professionally fitted hearing aids, if recommended by a hearing care professional, may do for you:

1. Unlock your earning potential. Hearing your best at work helps you do your best. One study found that using hearing aids reduced the risk of income loss by 90 to 100 percent for those with milder hearing loss, and from 65 to 77 percent for those with severe to moderate hearing loss. And people with hearing loss who use hearing aids are more likely to be employed than their peers who don’t. 

2. Open the door to greater intimacy. Don’t let those sweet nothings go unheard. Feeling emotionally close to your partner is one of the most satisfying aspects of any intimate relationship. But it rests on good communication. When hearing loss goes unaddressed, it can make even the most loving partner seem remote or unresponsive. Luckily, research shows that using hearing aids can help improve interpersonal relationships – including greater intimacy. 

3. Pull the plug on stress and boost your mood. People with untreated hearing loss often feel angry, frustrated, anxious, isolated, and depressed. But research shows that when they use hearing aids, their mental health often rallies. Many regain emotional stability, become more socially engaged, feel a greater sense of safety and independence, and see a general improvement in their overall quality of life. 

4. Bolster your self-confidence. An important perk of using hearing aids can be enhanced emotional well-being. Research shows that when people with hearing loss use hearing aids, many feel more in control of their lives and less self-critical. One Better Hearing Institute (BHI) study found that the majority of people with mild and severe hearing loss felt better about themselves and life overall as a result of using hearing aids. 

5. Improve cognitive functioning. Studies out of Johns Hopkins linked hearing loss with accelerated cognitive decline in older adults and found that seniors with hearing loss are significantly more likely to develop dementia over time. BHI studies found that many people with hearing loss report improvements in their cognitive skills with the use of hearing aids. 

So go ahead. Revitalize your life. Do something about your hearing. It just may help you feel forever young.

For more information – and to take a free, quick and confidential online hearing check to determine if you need a comprehensive hearing test by a hearing care professional – visit  www.BetterHearing.org

Reactions to ReSound LiNX

The best video I've seen with people talking about the new ReSound LiNX hearing aid and what they like about the system.  Worth watching.

LiNK, the first Made For iPhone heairng aid in the US marketplace

Hi Everyone:

I am so excited about the new ReSound LiNK hearing aids that just came onto the American market the 1st of March.  I've been in this business for 36-years now and as I look back over this time frame it seems that every 7 to 8 years there comes along a change in technology that, simply put, changes the whole field of hearing assistance.  When I first came into this business I helped introduce the first canal aids in 1980.  Next came some of the early analog/digital hybrid hearing aids in the late 1980's, 87-90, from 3-M, Fox and Ensoniq.  Next came fully digital hearing aids first introduced by Widex around 1998/9.  This was followed in 2006/7 by the first Receiver-in Canal (RIC) aids.   Now we have the first “Made For iPhone, iPad & iTouch” hearing aids introduced by ReSound at the European Hearing Conference in Germany in the fall of 2013 and at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in 2014.  Each of these major technology/product introductions has forever how we look at hearing aids and how we address hearing problems.  This last change has now changed our view of how we look at hearing aids, they are no longer just a medical necessity for people with hearing loss but now they are a consumer product that couples an individual to some of our most important communication and entertainment devices on the market today.  The MFi hearing aid can now couple a person to their family and friends through the iPhone, Facetime, their music, movies, driving directions from there GPS unit, and a multiple of other events we can only guess at.

There used to be an old joke in the industry in the early 80’s, when hearing aids sold for around $400 a piece, about a man that went into a hearing aid dispenser’s office and asked what the price of hearing aid were.  The dispenser told him they had hearing aids for $4,000 per aid at the high end and at the low end they had one for $1.50.  The man asked what he got for $4000 and the dispenser told him they put this computer in his ear and programmed it just for his hearing loss to give him the best speech clarity.  It also would change how it amplified when he walked into a noisy listening environment.  In addition if he was going to a foreign country he could come in and they could program the hearing aid to translate from that country’s language in English for him.  He responded great but if he bought the low end what did he get?   The dispenser told him they would give him a button with a string tied to it that he could place in his ear.   The man asked him how that helps him hear.  The dispenser told it doesn’t but when people see the string and button in the ear they all talk louder. 

Back when this joke came out we only had analog technology in hearing aids, I was shown a digital hearing aid by Wayne Staab, developed by Dahlberg Electronics, in 1984 but it filled a large suitcase and weighed about 45 pounds, and the first personal computers were just coming onto the market.  They were big and bulky pieces of iron.   So everyone thought this was truly science fiction.   Today we can do all of the things talked  about in the joke including language translation, there are apps out that will  translate from one language to  another language, and the phone will  send the translation  directly to the hearing aid and into  the ear.   Really does seem like what was talked about as joke, way back when, is now today’s fact. 

Think of it a total connection to the world around them.  Many of my patients need to speech read as well as hear what is being said to fully, or partially, understand what is being said.  For several years now I have been suggesting to these patients that they use Facetime or Skype to carry on conversations with family members and friends.   Now the voices can be delivered directly into both ears while they watch the faces to get all of the visual clues.   This is truly a game changer for the hearing aid industry. 

 Video Reaction to ReSound's Introduction to the new LiNK Hearing Aid at 2014 CES