Talking Hearing Loss

Its no secret that I am a massive fan of Phonak’s Roger technology and I have often referred to it as the Swiss Army Knife for hearing aid users. Alot of the successes that I have had in my role as a clinical teleaudiologist are a result of how I have been able to incorporate Roger into my work environment.

Below is an extract from an article by Paul Minikin for Hearing Aid Know on how Roger can help bridge for the void in those inevitable situations when hearing aids alone are not enough.

Hearing aid technology, particularly over the last few years, has improved markedly, but there are always going to be limitations to what can be achieved, and frankly, its harder to get closer to natural hearing the more your hearing levels drop.

Areas where you can see shortfalls in what hearing aids can provide
 
Hearing at distance – once you get past around as far as your fingertips can stretch. ALL hearing aids start to struggle to match natural hearing due to the inherent limitations of microphone technology. The more distant the sound source, the more difficult it is to hear with hearing loss compared to average natural hearing.
 
Hearing in a reverberant environment – when you go into a room with lots of hard surfaces (without carpets or curtains etc to absorb sound reflecting around the room) it can become very difficult to hear clearly. With hearing loss, it becomes so much harder to cope with that echo.
 
Hearing in noise – there has been a LOT of research and development and good improvements over the years gained by the hearing aid manufacturers to try to overcome how difficult it is to hear in noisy situations with hearing loss. However, even with the best hearing aid technology, it can still be a challenge without additional assistance and perhaps using coping strategies.
 
Meetings and communication at work and socially – we as a company supply a LOT of equipment to the UK market particularly to people struggling at work. Even with decent quality hearing aid technology we have many stories of how we have made a massive difference supplying radio aid technology to supplement what hearing aids alone can achieve. Here are some good news stories from our archives.
 
Listening to audio devices – TV, telephony, sound on a PC or tablet, radio or sound system, the list goes on. If you can send the audio from a device wirelessly straight to your hearing aids it is SO efficient in comparison to hearing at any kind of distance. Having a conversation on the phone can be transformed from difficult to easy.
 
In a simple sentence wireless direct audio streaming (and particularly with Phonak Roger equipment) turbo-charges your hearing aids.

This article was originally published on Hearing Aid Know, you can read the full article at https://www.hearingaidknow.com/phonak-roger-solution-to-overcome-limitations-hearing-aids