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- [Interviewer] A common complaint that I hear
from people that wear hearing devices
is that they cannot hear in background noise.
Why is it that these individuals are unable to hear?
- Yep, so there's three main reasons
why individuals don't hear very well in background noise.
The first one is is that everyone innately has
different abilities in order to process speech
when there's a lot of background noise going on.
So it's essentially your own ears'
and your own brain's ability
to filter out that background noise
and so one of the first tests that I do with patients
once we get through the traditional hearing test
is do a speech and noise test
and so what that does is that tells us
how well will that individual be able to hear in noise
all things even, right,
and the way that we score it
is it goes on a scale from zero to 25.
Zero basically means that you hear speech just fine
in a noiseless situation
just like a normal hearing individual would.
If you score a 25 on this scale,
it basically means if you turn a fan on in the room,
you're not gonna be able to hear anything.
So the very first step is to identify
where do you score on that spectrum of zero to 25?
If you're closer to the zero
then just treating you with traditional hearing aids
that have some directional microphones, things like that,
you should perform well in background noise
but if you score all the way up closer to the 25 score,
even the best hearing aids in the world fit perfectly
are not gonna help you hear as well in that situation
'cause your brain just can't filter out that noise, okay?
So that's the first step
is identifying where would you score on that scale.
What is your innate capability
of filtering out noise on your own?
Then we need to look at the hearing devices that you have.
So different hearing devices
will filter out background noise in different ways.
Some of them do it better.
Some of them do it not so well.
So identifying the right hearing aid for that individual
is extremely important.
On top of that, really,
I am not a huge fan of telling someone
that this hearing aid is going to give them
a huge benefit in background noise.
Hearing aids are traditionally really bad
at removing background noise
from things that you wanna hear.
Technology is getting great nowadays
but one thing it struggles with
is deciding what to amplify more,
i.e. the person speaking directly to you
and not amplify i.e. the noise that's around you.
It's very difficult for it to figure that
listening landscape out.
So the best way if these individuals
who are struggling in background noise,
the best way for them to experience
a better ability to hear in those situations
is to use a remote listening device
and what a remote listening device does
is it actually is something like a remote microphone
that you could clip on the person that you're talking to
and the shorter the distance
of that microphone to their mouth is better
because it doesn't allow the infiltration of that noise
into that speech signal to you.
So how it works is you clip it on someone's shirt,
they're talking, it goes right from that remote microphone
right into your ears if you're wearing hearing aids
and so it cuts out all that background noise
and it substantially improves your ability to hear
in background noise.
So one of the big negatives really
is that not a lot of people know
that there's these assistive listening devices
that can dramatically help you
in those listening situations.
Also, some people aren't comfortable
having someone wear a remote microphone
or setting a remote microphone in front of them.
One of my favorite pieces of equipment
is an FM system that the company Phonak makes
which is called the Roger Pen.
The Roger Pen works in three different ways.
You can either put it around someone's neck
for them to talk into
and have that stream their voice to you,
you can set it in the center of a table
and it will pick up the voices of the people
in that immediate vicinity around the table
or you can sit back and point it at who you want to hear.
Now, you can be all weird about it
and hold it up into their face
or you can just sit back casually in your chair
and just point it at the person that you wanna hear.
So if you're in a group of five people
and you're all taking turns talking,
you can bounce back and forth
and listen to the person who you wanna hear
where it doesn't really let you do that
if you clip something on someone's shirt.
So I think at the end of the day,
it's really important to understand
that there's a lot of options for you.
You just need to be aware of 'em
and be willing to try them
but I guarantee that the best hearing
that any of these people
who are struggling in background noise
that you're talking about,
the best benefit that they would get
is from using a remote listening device.
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