Hearing Loss LIVE! Talks Hearing Aids and Technology

Get the most out of your upcoming holidays with #Friends and #Family. #HearingLoss technology has come a long way! Find out all the programs and #Apps available to use with hearing loss.

Read our post too! This one on technology in general:
https://hearinglosslive.com/hearing-loss-the-holidays-using-assistive-technology/
This one explains remote mics for hearing aids:
https://hearinglosslive.com/hearing-aids-cochlear-implants-remote-microphone-technology/

For a transcript of this podcast, go to our BuzzSprout site:
https://hearinglosslivepodcast.buzzsprout.com/

#HearingLossTechnology #AssistiveListening #AppsForHearingLoss #HearingLossLIVE

Transcript

Hearing Loss LIVE! talks hearing loss and technology for the holidays. 

Julia: Hello, and welcome to Hearing Loss LIVE! We hope you are enjoying our workshop series. If you are please remember to subscribe, share, like join us buy us, do all of it. Now the dogs gonna scratch on the door because I sat down to podcast, right? So, sorry about the interference there. Anyways, this month has all been about technology and your hearing aids and family gatherings because it is the holidays that are upon us. And it's been interesting. So I got to play with some technology that does not involve hearing aids. My husband has a Google Pixel phone and I have an iPhone, neither of us wear hearing aids, of course. So I decided to look up some of the accessibility is that you can use and it was pretty cool. In our blog, I talk about how turns out Google kind -- the Pixel phone, I know it's considered an Android, but they actually were the first ones to be really advanced in hearing loss technology. So you can hook to thier, you can hook Bluetooth, and make your phone into a microphone that comes straight to your ears, you can you know, then turn it around and let it face somebody or you can lay it on your-- what I did is I put it on the TV stand and then walked away to see, you know, if I could hear and what's cool is, we use the Roku for our Bluetooth when we want just sound to one person. But using it as a microphone allowed sound and you can do it to your hearing aids if you've got bluetooth to go to your head, but everybody else got the sound too. What I found cool about that is sometimes at the holidays, we like football games, right? But maybe we want to turn it down so it's not too loud. And so you could hook your your Google Live microphone on, set it down by the TV soundbar. And then you know if that gives you the sound quality and you don't need the captions, you can walk around and you're listening to the game. And I actually walked all the way to the back room and it was still pretty for me it worked really well. I was a little off when I was in the same room with the TV. But still cool function, right? So I thought, Well, why, wait, iPhone must have something. And they don't unless you download an app. But there are tons of free apps that are a microphone that you can use to boost sound to your hearing devices, Bluetooth hearing devices or your plugged in device, whatever it is. So that was pretty cool. I liked learning about that. Stuff like that helps sometimes when you're somewhere and they're like, Oh, this isn't working, you can like Oh, watch this, try that. We played with Roku. I don't know that that's a technology for the holidays, unless you want to listen to the TV by yourself. And away from everybody else. Excuse me, I ran into the desk. What's interesting, I think that's important not just for people with hearing loss, but their hearing partners. You know, me I push get involved, right, go to the audiologist, go find out what's lubed how, what, why, when and where. Help them set up apps, help them make phone calls to have the family set up apps at the table. But for whatever reason, if you don't know what technology you have, I probably don't know what technology you have. I think it's very important. Okay, so this isn't a dig, but it is. It's very important that audiologist know and tell their consumers, have the ability to answer the questions, know the different products or be able to point those that want more information to the correct place to get information. Does that kind of make sense Chelle? you play a lot you like to play with your hearing aids. And I think that's cool because then you can educate others. So give us some insight with things that you realize people probably need to know more about. Either on the hearing aids they have or in their research to get hearing aids that can help.

Chelle: Yes, this is Chelle, I do know a lot about this after 32 years of wearing hearing aids. One of the things I was telling people at the workshop is that when we get our hearing aids, we pay a bundled price. That means we're paying for future services. If you're not going back to your audiologist, you are not getting your money's worth, make sure you go back, if you are unsatisfied with them, just go back, you've paid for it. Don't worry about it. Go back as often as needed. until you're satisfied, it's not perfect. Nothing is, but it should, should be better. So what I've told people was to prepare for the holidays, let's prep our hearing aids a little bit better. Let's get some program options in your hearing aids that will help. A lot of people just walk out with maybe three programs on their hearing aids, which is the master program and sometimes that will try to shift and match the environment in. But in my opinion, it does not help enough. And I need to manage the way I hear a little bit better. So that's when I go into my speech and noise program. Actually, it says speech and loud noise. And audiologist can tweak the programs even more. So what I wanted was I want the volume level to come down a couple of notches, because noise is very, very distracting for me when I'm communicating. Even lip reading wise noise can just cause me to clench my teeth. So I need that volume level dropped like two bits. And if I want, I can always turn it up in the app if I need more. And the other thing is, is there on focus forward, I want to be able to focus on who ever I'm talking to. And if it changes and I swing my head around, then I'm just listening to this person or my head swivels. But that's okay, because that's how I get my information better. Another challenging environment is the cars. A lot of us are going to be in cars traveling for the holidays, and hearing aids seem to pick up the road noise, the traffic, wind leaks. And my hair needs my own hearing aids used to to try to process out some of that sound. So they would go on a forward focus mode. And so the only thing I could hear is what was bounced off the windshield. So I have a specific side to side program, so that when I'm in the car I can hear the other person better. That's another option. And and like I said, anything you hear here, go to your audiologist make this appointment as soon as you hear this, make the appointment and see if you can get your hearing aids, the programs that we're talking about here. So speech in the car is important. And that side by side, which they used to call stroll, you know, because you're walking by each other. It also works when you go for a walk. And sometimes after the holiday dinner, we go for walks, right. So it tough to hear side by side. There's the everybody has a restaurant setting. But what people don't know is you can go in and tweak that program further yourself if you have the newer hearing aids. So they have when I push the adjust program when I'm in my restaurant mode, and I'm on the hearing aid app, it gives me the option at the bottom to adjust mode, adjust, adjust, maybe it just as adjust it when I go in there that gives me default, comfort, clarity, speech and surrounding. That's awesome. I was with my friend Gloria last week and a restaurant burned out she was having a hard time hearing. So I went through her, I just grabbed her phone. She'll say that and I started pushing through comfort, clarity, speech and surround Do. And this is where I'm really good with body language, I could tell when I hit a sound she liked because her face went, "Oh." And I'm like, Okay, so that's the program here. Now you can save it as restaurant one, two, because it makes you save it. The other thing you can do, my hearing aid app allows me to do is to, to control the volume there, I don't know why they put it into places because I can on the main part of the program, too. It has noise reduction, I can slide a bar for noise reduction. And it also has dynamic, which I haven't played with yet, but I will. So there's there's different things we can do with our hearing aids, and so many different programs. If, if you want to learn we have a past blog on hearing aid program options, and that will give you more of an idea on the options available. And then feel free to email me, I am so happy to talk about hearing aid fixes. Audiologist don't cover it, I had another friend who went to a restaurant, she was not happy she couldn't participate. And then I told her about the adjust the program. And she went in and the next time she chose another way to here and she did a lot better. But we don't know. So Julia is right. Our audiologist aren't giving us enough information. And maybe we aren't exploring enough on our own. Poke buttons. Okay. It's not like the old days where you did the wrong button on a computer and everything would [poof]. It's not like that anymore.

Julia: Give me some thoughts. Because I know how a table mic might work. I think if you were using Bluetooth earbuds or something, and I'm thinking of the Thanksgiving table or the Christmas table where you're, where you're gathered around, we've talked in the past in many of our blogs, and a couple of our Christmas shows about, you know, different apps to have captions running while you're sitting at the table. But there's there's lots of new technology with microphone table microphones, if that makes sense. I know some of them might be expensive. And but it I think what-ya-ma-call-it.. Diglo has a couple of different options for folks to look at. If you don't, you know, does that make sense? What's your thought process on. Now, here's why I'm asking this question. Because I think it's a great idea if it helps everybody communicate. But is it going to be too much? Banging, people passing plates, forks hitting, you know, I remember back a couple of SayWhatClubs back. I think we were in Pittsburgh. They used a Roger device at the table, I think it looked like a little circle. And they used it in a restaurant setting at a table and everybody was able to hook their hearing aids to it. You didn't like need individual ones. There was four people on the table. You weren't there. But there were four people on the table. And they all used it to get Bluetooth straight to their hearing aids. And a couple of them came up and talked because they were talking about the technology in the presentation. And a couple of them came up and said yeah, it was perfect. It cut out all the rest of the other noise. So I don't know what experience do you have, I guess because it if you don't I want people to maybe email us in and tell us their thoughts on what they use because I love learning about this stuff, right? This is how we grow with what we've got going on. But give me some information about what you know about table mics.

Chelle: I have not experienced the Roger select yet. I don't know how many people can pair into it. You might have to pair your hearing aids to the device. And Roger, or Phonak because it's a Phonak system. It might have to be a Phonak hearing aids unless you having a receiver also from Phonak because a lot of people use Roger pens, or Roger on and they're Roger on has a table setting too. So it does help block out some of the background noise or focuses in on voices a little bit better. Another time at another restaurant with my friend Gloria, we both wear hearing aids, we both have the same hearing aid. So it really makes it easy for me to, to help her but I had my Roger on a band came and sat set up three person band, not 12 feet away from us. And I could just feel everything go into total focus mode, in my face on my- the tension in my face is the only way I know how to describe it, and I remembered, oh, I have my Roger on. I'm going to put it on Gloria and make sure that, see how it works compared to my speech and noise program, because the speech and noise program was just it was-- the music was too damn close. So I put the Roger on on her and she clipped it to her collar. And right away my whole I could fill up my whole face just lighten up. Even though I could still hear the music, her voice came in over the music and clear. So there is something about clarifying noise some of those things. And in the table setting. Thinking of Thanksgiving family dinner? Because the advice that I'm going to have what six people with me? If I set it in the middle of the table, they usually set it on something in case somebody spills something you never know. So I put it on something high. [laughter] And I pick where around the table I need to hear from. So I wouldn't-- I would go to the ambient or surrounding noise balance thing. And I would there's a slide bar there on how much I want to hear. Outside of the microphone. I can shut it down to microphone only It depends on maybe somebody's beside me just really going at it. I don't want to hear them at all. Because some people do, they talk loud, and, and above and you can hardly hear anybody else because of that. So I would maybe slide the ambient noise more towards less of my environment. But if I, if I want to hear both what's coming across on the mic, let's say it's focused on this person and this person, but I still want to hear what's beside me, I would move the ambient noise toward the middle so I'm getting both. So that's how I would handle a table mic at Thanksgiving. 

Julia: Cool.

Getting close to 20 minutes here. Any other thoughts for this workshop part that you want to share with those that's important?

Chelle: I would like people to know how much accessibility you have in your phone. Android is awesome. I went through my mom's and I was totally surprised at how much accessibility there is on Android systems. So it was I was really blown away. It is more options than iPhone currently. But iPhone her several good options, including live captions beta right now, and Android has something similar built in. So you don't have to buy an extra app. And you can use those if you're having a hard time but here's a little secret. If the live the ASR, automatic speech captions are unable to pick up the person, there's too much noise because ASR hear similar to us. So you need to find those quiet spots to get the good communication in and if if everybody takes turns at the Thanksgiving dinner table talking, big bonus. That's not going to help just you more than likely there's somebody else there with hearing loss as well. So check your accessibility. Settings, accessibility, and explore it poke buttons, try it slide bars, whatever. Try it all before you go. So you know, how to use it.

Julia: Thank you. That's some really good advice. And it not only helps maybe somebody else who has a hidden hearing loss, it helps with those with auditory processing disorders. When we all take a turn, speak one at a time, find a quiet corner to enjoy someone you haven't seen for a really long time. I know we do these at the holidays, the technology ones, but really, truly, this workshop is going to help you with any large size event. I don't know three or more people is large, in my opinion, but I'm an introvert. What can I say? Oh, Chelle, one more thing.

Chelle: We can't possibly say this all in our podcasts, please go to our blog. Subscribe, and read what's coming up. Because we have microphone companions to the hearing aids remote mics, that's on a bog right now. We're gonna talk other tips for the holidays as well follow our blog and subscribe.

Julia: Thank you. Anyways, so technology is something we can use year round. So we hope you will enjoy this free week with our workshop and look for it to come out in December with a workbook to help you figure out how best to talk with those around you to help with that technology and maybe thoughts on what you can talk to your audiologist about and get the information you need to have better success with your hearing aids, your hearing buds, your Bluetooth whatever it is that you're using, including ASR and or live captioning. Anyways, we enjoy you. See you next time. Bye.