Hi there, I'm Emma from Value Hearing and in this
video i'm going to share with you three
must-have features of hearing aids in 2020. So i've chosen
these three features really based on my clinical experiences
as an audiologist over 2020. They're based on the feedback that i've gotten
from my own clients, what i've also noticed with
these three features is that they really weren't as must-have
back in 2019. 2020 has been quite a unique year and
with it has come a slightly different demand
from my clients in the clinic in terms of what features they want with their
hearing aids. So number one is an obvious one:
Bluetooth connection! People want to have some way of
streaming audio from their phones, their computers, their
tablets directly into their hearing aids. Why? Pretty obvious, being in a pandemic
so many more people are working from home,
they're taking skype calls, they're using zoom
for work meetings, they want to be able to instead of using headphones or
earphones, directly stream that audio into their
hearing aids. Also, what i've noticed is here in Sydney,
my clients, they really want to keep fit throughout the pandemic
so a lot of them are not going to classes
in person anymore. They're streaming their yoga,
F45 directly into their living rooms, they want to be able to hear the
instructor directly into their hearing aids.
The other thing i have noticed is a lot more of my clients
have more down time so they're telling me they listen to audio books, they
listen to podcasts, they're listening to music
and they're listening to youtube videos or watching youtube videos more so.
Again ,having that direct connection to their hearing aids seems to be
even more important in their downtime. So what it means to have this connection ,a
lot of my clients think it just converts the hearing aids straight into
a headset. It does but it doesn't take away the hearing aid side of it ,so you
still get amplification based on your prescription.
Which is what makes it so much better than taking the hearing aids out and
putting headphones or airpods in. Okay, now number two
that i would say is definitely way more important in 2020 than 2019
is tele-audiology. So the ability to have your hearing aids remotely fine-tuned
by your audiologist so that you don't need to
come into the clinic when you need an adjustment. So
this has been really powerful in 2020, you're not able to come into the clinic
we're able to actually say okay well we can
in some cases make huge adjustments to the hearing aids if we need to.
Depending on the brand of hearing aid, they all
vary a little bit in terms of what we can offer,
but most of them have some version of tele audiology attached to them. So
really important to consider that when you're choosing a hearing aid as to does
it have tele audiology and what type of tele audiology does it
have. Number three is rechargeability,
people more than ever over the last few years have been asking and certainly in
2019 this would have come close to the top.
People want to have rechargeable hearing aids,
I feel that my existing clients, from what i've noticed
in 2020, they want it more than they used to.
They've been used to the zinc air technology but i think with the pandemic
it's not quite as easy to come into the clinic to pick up batteries,
it's not as reliable to order them online,
so they're more attracted to the rechargeable
models for that reason. So most of the rechargeable models are now lithium-ion
so those batteries should last for years at a time.
So that's it really that's the three that i feel really stand out for being
extremely must-have in 2020. But just to be clear,
no matter what hearing aid you choose, no matter what features you have,
if you're purchasing that hearing aid in a clinic from an audiologist make sure
that they prescribe the hearing aid using a real
ear measurement. It is so important, it will mean that you get
the most out of the technology. No matter what feature you have, nothing
is more important than having a real ear measurement when you actually have the hearing aids fitted. The other thing
that i should probably let you know is that don't
assume that those three must-have features are only available
in the really top-end hearing aids. That's not the case,
it's available, all three of them are available at different levels of
technology. So have a good chat to your audiologist
about your options, your priorities and you should be able
to find something within your budget easily. Please share and like this video
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lots of other videos and more to come, and please let me know if there are any
topics you'd like us to cover in the future, just leave a comment in
the box below. Thank you so much for watching