Hearing with Less Effort

• Oct 24, 2016

Hearing with Less Effort

Hearing aids are far better than even 5 years ago.

Studies have shown that even when younger and older adults have similar hearing thresholds and speech discrimination ability in quiet, older adults will perform worse on speech discrimination tasks in noise than their younger counterparts (Kricos 2006).
With this in mind the emphasis of this article is improvements in hearing aid technology in noisy environments.
Hearing aids are brilliant in quiet scenarios like one on one conversations and watching TV.
But it is in challenging noisy environments that the latest technology can shine over previous instruments.
Noise reduction and dual microphone directionality in hearing instruments were both conceived as a means to improve speech understanding in noise.

Oticon BrainHearing™ Technology - update 2019

When you listen to a conversation, your ears and your brain work together as a system and it's your brain that does the heavy lifting. Brain functions include Orient, Recognise, Focus and Seperate.

Oticon

More about Oticon Hearing Aids including current prices on "first hearing aid proven to make it easier on the brain".

ReSound

As Resound states in Linx2 New Binaural Directionality™ II with Spatial Sense™ supports your brain’s natural ability to process sounds, enabling you to hear with less effort. The latest ReSound Hearing Aid is the LiNX Quattro which builds on the LiNX2.
Many advanced hearing aids have these features-:

Directional Microphones

Knowing where sounds are coming from allows you to tune out competing sounds.

DNR

Digital noise reduction will do just what it says - reduce the amount of noise created by distracting background noises. This is especially helpful when you’re dining out, attending a large dinner party, or reading in a coffee shop.
This article is enlightening on "The Surprising Success of Digital Noise Reduction" because it indicates the benefit is "improved attention and quicker word identification and better neural coding of words"
Essentially indicating coping and processign in noisy environments is improved.

Other improvements

Connecting to iPhones and devices with specific apps allows for all sorts of adjustments. Users of this technology report being able to focus on people in a noisy restaurtant better. Patrick C reported that conversations were far easier within 2 metres when in restaurant mode with the Linx2 hearing aid.

Feedback Cancellation - Squarking

Some of the most notable advances in hearing aid technology have come in the area of feedback cancellation. Today's hearing instruments are nothing like the squawking dinosaurs your grand parents may have worn. Designed to be discreet in every way, modern hearing aids are small, unobtrusive, and virtually feedback-free

No one should have to live with hearing loss.

Phil Hoile Hearing Aids Australia

Hearing Aids were found to reduce cognitive decline in a study conducted over 25 years

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