- In this video, I'm gonna teach you
the six major differences
between hearing aid technology levels
and how to determine which one is right for you.
Coming up.
(upbeat music)
Hi guys, Cliff Olson, Doctor of Audiology
and founder of Applied Hearing Solutions.
And on this channel I cover a bunch
of hearing related information to help make you
a better informed consumer.
So if you're into that,
consider hitting the Subscribe button.
Selecting a hearing aid
that meets your needs requires two things.
First, identifying the style of the device
that you would need and two, more importantly,
the level of technology inside of the device.
Now, hearing aids function a lot like computers
and what I mean by that is that,
you can have two completely, similarly looking computers.
They look exactly the same but on the inside,
they may have technology differences.
So if you're the type of person
who just likes to surf the internet, you know,
go on Google and Facebook,
you can get away with the computer
that has very basic internal components and software.
However, if you're the type of person
who likes to stream a lot of movies, play a lot of games,
you know, do a lot of things that requires a lot of storage,
you might need a computer that has a larger hard drive,
quicker processor, and different things like that,
to allow you to do those things
that you need to do on that computer.
Hearing aids are really the same in that fashion, is that,
the style of the hearing aid doesn't matter so much
when you look at two different devices.
They might look exactly the same but the level of technology
inside of them can be drastically different and that
can control whether or not you have success
with hearing treatment or you don't.
Most manufacturers have three to four different tiers
of technology level, anywhere from premium at the very top
all the way down to basic at the very bottom.
Now one important characteristic that I wanna make sure
that I explain is that there is no such thing
as an entry level hearing aid.
There is just a hearing aid that either meets your needs
or a hearing aid that does not meet your needs.
It doesn't matter where you are in the spectrum
of treating your hearing loss.
What matters is are the things that you are requiring
of that device, is that device capable of meeting
those requirements.
Now unlike computers, hearing aid technology
is a lot more linked to the software inside of the device
rather than hardware differences inside of the device.
You'll have two identical devices.
They will use the same receivers.
They will use the same microphones.
They will have the same push button volume control
on them, but at the end of the day, it's the software
and the computer chip that's inside of these hearing aids
that will function differently and make them perform
better or worse for you.
There's six major differences that you need to look out
when determining the right
hearing aid technology level for you.
The first one is customizability.
What I mean by customizability is that a hearing aid
amplifies to a certain range.
And what I mean is by frequency.
And so, when you get a hearing aid,
if you have a lot of channels in that hearing aid
it allows the audiologist to make more precise adjustments
with the way that they're amplifying sound for you.
For instance, if you had a hearing aid with, let's say
three channels and you could only raise the base, mids,
and treble in a hearing aid, you would get a very crude
approximation of what your prescription is
for your hearing loss and you might feel like,
you're not really getting the precision in your hearing
that you would be hoping for.
On the other hand, with the really premium level
of technology, you can get up to 20 plus channels
in a hearing aid that allow you to very specifically
or allow the audiologist to very finely tune that device
and get your hearing aid programmed really nicely
up to your hearing loss prescription.
The second major difference in hearing aid technology is
the device's ability to function well in background noise.
Pretty much all hearing aids, as long as they're wireless
have the capability of binaural synchronization.
Simply what that means is that the hearing aids
can communicate back and forth between themselves.
What that does is that it actually improves your ability
to hear background noise because instead of just having
two microphones on each ear, it actually have
four microphones that can communicate with each other
and tell each other what the listening landscape is.
But the premium level hearing devices have more features
along with that to help you perform better
in a background noise situation.
So for instance, with the premium level piece
of hearing technology, you could be at dinner
with your family and friends at a restaurant and be able
to hear the person at the table around you better
than you would if you had just
a basic level of hearing technology.
The third major difference is the ease of use.
Premium level devices have features inside of them
and programs inside of them that account for many different
situations that you might find yourself in.
When you start going down to a basic level device,
it might only have a few programs and programs that you
might even have to adjust manually.
Generally speaking, basic hearing aids
have around three programs.
One that will allow your hearing aids to pick up sound
from all directions, otherwise known as Calm Situations.
The second program would generally be something
like a speech and noise program, where,
when it identifies noise it kind of puts blinders on
and focuses the microphones forward at the person
that you're looking and talking to while not amplifying
so much the people around you.
The third one might be something like a music program
which allows sound to come in more naturally.
There's much less processing happening inside
of a music program.
When you step up a level of technology into more
of the mid-range technology,
you'll get more programs added in.
For instance maybe a comfort and noise program,
where when it senses noise in your area but you're not
talking directly to someone, it just softens
all of that background noise.
And maybe even a program that handles reverberation
a little bit better or otherwise known as an echo.
A type of situation where you're in a big empty room
with hard walls, hard floors, hard ceilings
and all that sound is bouncing around and you want
a control for that a little bit better.
Once you start stepping up to the premium level technology,
generally a hearing aid has a program for pretty much
any situation you can find yourself in.
Whether it's the car, whether it's at home,
whether it's in a restaurant, it doesn't matter.
It generally has a program for it and over the years,
they've gotten a lot more advanced
in how they process sound.
That being said, it also does things automatically.
So if you find yourself going into your vehicle
and having a conversation with your spouse or a friend
inside of your car, the hearing aid automatically puts into
the speech and car situation so you can hear them
a lot better in that specific environment.
Imagine that hearing aid being able to do that
in any situation you find yourself in and putting you
into the exact settings that you need to be
to hear the best in that environment.
This means that you don't have to constantly be clicking
a program button to find the right setting for you.
In fact they've done a research on this and they know that
the hearing aid can identify the program
that's right for you better than what you can as a human
trying to identify that situation.
The fourth major difference is comfort and sound.
And what I mean by that is when you find yourself
in these different environments that might have different
harsh types of sounds like wind or background noise,
things like that, the hearing aid has different
digital features in there to kind of get rid
of those annoying sounds that you don't want to hear.
Whereas a basic level device might not have
all of those features or have them functioning
to their full capacity.
For instance, a wind feature alright,
if you find yourself out on the golf course for instance,
you might have wind coming at you from all directions,
with a premium level device, it will be able to identify
that there's wind coming in and be able to block out
that wind whereas a basic level device
won't have those types of digital features
to remove that wind.
And what that results in is you struggling to hear more
in a windy setting or a noisy setting than someone
who would have a premium level device.
Now difference number five is connectivity.
And this isn't always the case with premium level versus
basic level but most of the times when you're talking
about connectivity with the phone
or other Bluetooth devices, you're gonna have to get
into the higher levels of technology levels.
That being said, most of the companies do have
some kind of Bluetooth connectivity all the way down
to their basic levels but when you start going even below
the basic levels, they probably don't even
give you that option.
And there are several companies who have that as an issue.
That being said, it also goes not just for Bluetooth
connectivity but rechargeability.
Rechargeability is something that has been coming out
pretty strong recently.
Most of the companies wanna have this rechargeability
aspect but most of them don't give you access to it
unless you're in the upper levels of technology.
What this means for you is that if you wanna have
really good connectivity and you even potentially want
rechargeability, you're gonna have to go with the more
premium or mid-level device.
If you want that and you want it to work well.
Last but not least, difference number six is cost.
Yes, if you want that premium level technology
over that basic level of hearing aid technology,
you are going to have to spend more money to get it.
And when I mean spend more money, it's generally
gonna cost you at least a thousand dollars more
for a premium level piece of technology than it does
for a basic level piece of hearing aid technology.
Now if you take a minute to break that down and really,
what does that cost you annually to go with
the premium level piece of technology
versus the basic level piece of technology
is about two hundred and fifty dollars per ear per year.
So generally if we look at maybe two thousand dollars,
you split that out over four years, that's about
five hundred dollars a year additionally that you will pay
for the more premium level of hearing technology.
Now is it worth it?
Well it is worth it if you need those features or want
those features to be able to hear better in all of these
variety of environments that you find yourself in.
But if you are literally someone who sits at home all day
and maybe just watches TV and has quiet conversations
with one or two visitors at a time, then you'll probably
be okay with the basic level technology.
However, most of us find ourselves in complex
listening environments at least one or two times a week,
whether that's going to church
or whether that going to a restaurant,
whether you're having a family get together and so forth.
And if you have basic level technology, when you find
yourself in those complex listening environments,
you will not perform as well.
From a research standpoint, researchers really haven't
been able to specifically identify how much benefit
a premium level device gets you over a basic level device.
So if you look at it from a macro level, a very wide, broad
range level, you won't be able to find studies that actually
indicate that premium level technology does any better
than basic level technology.
But when you start working on a one-to-one basis
with patients, I see it all the time.
If you ever take someone and put them from a basic into
a premium, they notice the difference immediately
and this is likely due to the fact that we can customize
it better for their hearing loss.
They get these digital features enabled that allow them
to hear more in a relaxed type situation.
It requires less hands on adjustments from their standpoint,
when they find themselves in a tricky situation
and the hearing aid just flat out function better and
I have never seen a case where someone who's been
in a premium level device and has been able to switch down
to a basic level device because the differences
are just too large.
Now it may seem overwhelming to you that there's so many
different types of technology and there's several different
levels, how you do really find out
the one that's right for you?
Well really, that is the responsibility of the hearing care
professional that you're going to see.
By spending time with you and finding out specifically
what type of lifestyle you have, what situations you find
yourself in regularly, they should be able to recommend you
the right level of technology.
So don't be surprised if you come in there saying,
"I wanna hear when I go to my son's baseball games"
"and I wanna go to restaurants and be able to hear"
"and I want to, you know, go to family gatherings"
"and have no issue there whatsoever", don't be surprised
if they recommend you a premium level piece of technology
because they know that you'll be hearing better with that
technology than you would with a basic level hearing device.
Alright, so I'm gonna kind of finish this thing off
with a little bit of a secret and that secret is, is that,
it really doesn't matter what level of technology you get,
if the hearing care professional doesn't fit it well to you.
And so what I mean by that is, when I say
fitting it well to you, I mean programming it.
And programming it using real ear measurement
or real ear verification.
This is the way that you make sure that a hearing aid
is still up to your prescriptive levels and when you do that
then all of these features and the great things about
these really nice premium level hearing aids, that's when
all of it really starts to come out
and you start to perceive that benefit.
But I can tell you one thing, a basic level device
fit properly to you and programmed properly to you
will perform better than a premium level device
that did not use real ear measures and was not
appropriately fit to you.
That's it for this video.
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