How to Improve Your Hearing, Part 3 with Hope Lanter

*The following is the output of transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors.

The following is a podcast from a qualified senior care provider, hurt, on the answers for elders radio show. And Welcome back everyone to the answers for elders radio network and we are here with Hope Lanter, who is the lead audiologist of Hear.com, and our listeners are kind of probably are learning about my story and obviously I chose to go with your organization just because mainly not only the service was amazing, but also the technology of what your product does, because you guys actually have like the most superior product in the industry, and that’s the part that I think was really, really appealing to me. And there’s things that my hearing aids can do that I had no idea how so tell us a little bit hope of where we where we’ve come with hearing aids. It’s kind of interesting, it really is. I mean I remember my great grandmother would put her hearing it in and then you’d see her sometimes turn it down, turn it up, and whether or not she was connected was, you know, who knows. It was all based on whether or not she added on or properly working those kind of things, and so you know now we don’t. We’re not talking about anybody’s grandma’s hearing aids anymore. We’re talking about, you know, very modern devices. They’re essentially the come like a whole other tech that you’re putting onto your your body each day. So, you know, it’s a really interesting thing for us. We actually, because of our millions of phone consultations, have really learned what is it that baby boomer customers really want, and that’s helped us to develop our own proprietary features. And so that is something that the harecom horizon hearing aid has now been developed. It is actually based on Signi as full fledged ax experience platform, and so with that, what we do is then build upon that. So with the harecom horizon APP, you have access to these features, which would be basically having speech focus that’s going to allow you to have the most aggressive speech and noise on the market. So if you’re in a restaurant group, even if somebody’s wearing a mask, really good application of using that as well, and on demand. They’re able to then touch the APP and get there. As far as we also have relaxed mode that turns microphones off, turns a speech from, sorry, an ocean waves sound on. Yeah, that’s going to be relaxation type. You know experiences early users like yourself can use that instead of taking the devices out. They can listen to that sound long term, of course, using it as relaxing setting. In our most recent devices we also have now added what we call Panorama effect. What that does is it gives you an on demand button that allows you to then hear three hundred sixty degrees around you. So what we call omnidirectional. But really, if you’re out nature walk, you know, hiking, your concert, yeah, I would asume you’d want to put that on. Sometimes it yeah, just just depends on the the you know what it is you’re wanting. Ok, and that scenario you mentioned, the car for example, like if you were driving and you had somebody in the backseat trying to talk to you, the hearing a May say, okay, I don’t want to hear all these other noises and it may drown out from that direction. So you can kind of you override sometimes and these kind of situations. But really just, you know, based on that specific place, wherever you are, whatever you needs are, or if it’s something where you do want to hear let’s say you go to a lecture and really there’s a fan running in the room and now the hearing it’s decided, okay, we’re not going to pick up the fan, but that means I don’t hear the person asking questions from that direction. So now there’s a lot of ways that you can then say hey, I can, I can do something about this. You know, I love the directional side of this and I have noticed it wherever you turn your head. This is what’s so incredible about this technology. Who Wherever you’re facing. It’s amazing that my hearing AIDS know which person to pick up it. It’s like there’s something in the device that’s directional, so that wherever I’m pointed, you know, if I’m looking around, it will if I’m looking at someone, that is the sound that is going to pick up. And I noticed that really in restaurants, if I’m sitting around. I belong to a winery and I go often times with, you know, friends around the table, and I’ve noticed that. I that has made a huge difference for me because before or again we talked about it, I would just tune out between the background noise and all the stuff happening I wouldn’t have the ability and and the other thing that’s really amazing is on my smartphone, for those of you that I didn’t even know and I do now, is all you have to do is hit three times and automatically your your hearing aids. You can control them from your smartphone. You control the volume, you can and so that’s the thing that so amazing. It can actually give you the ability to to really customize it with every you know, minute, and that that’s the thing that’s cool. I get phone calls. My phone calls come through my hearing aids, which is really amazing. So I don’t have those those you know, having to listen to a phone and put it up and sometimes, you know, you’ll get a little, you know, a little chirp or whatever from your hearing aid if you if you press your ear. So there’s a lot of things I think that is changed in technology today that is just blows my mind. It’s really, really cool. The really interesting thing with this hearing it is that it has actually two chips that are working at the same time, so one is working on the noise and one is working on the speech, and so then we it gives it really a lot more processing power to be able to do that. Outside of that, you know, Obviously Bluetooth is what makes the APP happen. So everybody who has a smartphone now really has the option and to be able to change settings as they are going through their day if they want to. I mean the really cool thing now is that you don’t really have to do any of that. The hearing aids are so smart that they pretty much take care of everything, but it’s if you know, a lot of people like having that extra layer of control if they if they need it. So it is something really neat. You can stream phone calls through your hearing aids, you can stream TV through the hearing aids. There’s all sorts of ways of making the hearing aids you can sort of fit your lifestyle. So pretty much anything goes. So it’s that’s what’s really important is talking about what are your needs. Everybody has a very specific set of here’s what my life looks like, and then figuring out, okay, well, this is the device that can do everything you’re asking for well and and just really understanding that there’s so many different you know, it’s into I was interested that there’s only like what five or six manufacturers of hearing aids and then everything else is like rebranded. So you know the fact that these platforms come out and then organizations like you guys on there, and there’s other ones out there, but you guys really I think they say five x was the top when I first learned. Well, you guys are seven x. So your two steps above what is considered the industry standard, which I was really really amazed by, and certainly I’m having that ability to, you know, to tap take advantage of that. To me it was worth the investment in my hearing it, and you know I did. I decided to, you know, pay the top dollar just because I wanted to. But they’re really the financing of them is makes it so affordable that it’s it’s crazy not to do something that’s going to last a lifetime. So that’s the way I looked at it. Yet absolutely, and I think that that makes a difference, you know, in terms of understanding. You know that that it is such an impact to your overall quality of life and you know that daily experiences and everything like that. So you know, everybody has obviously a different set of needs, a different set of sort of here’s what I want and expect out of the device. So you know, obviously there’s a lot of technology options in terms of levels and everything like that. But you know, now we have pretty much all levels. are able to stream phone calls. You know, we have a bluetooth capability. The way that those devices work in noise is going to be your biggest difference. So you know, if you have a lot of very fast paced, active lifestyle, then you know those higher end technologies are going to do a better job. They’re right and I have to listen for living just you know. So it was important. Now the other thing, obviously, to is I remember back in the older day, olden days, when I say when my mom were hearing aids, if she got a you know, she would, they would order them based with her prescription and they couldn’t change them and she’d have to buy a new pair to upgrade. It’s doesn’t work that way anymore and so the nice thing about it is it’s actually controlled in through an audiologist when you go in and they can adjust those and one of the things that was really cool is is that I actually, when they first fit me, I came back a week later and then another week later just to make sure that they tweaked them just a little bit to make sure that, you know, how are you experiencing? This helped me through the process and so that’s something I think that not everyone is aware of. And the hearing it’s initially are set to your test results, you know, and that’s something that, yes, that gets you very much right. They are very close to the prescription level, but then there are some little minor tweaks that may need be made the kind of fit the rest of you. As we all know that we compare it to kind of like how much salt do you want on your food? Everybody has a little bit different level of what they prefer. They’re so that can make a big difference with it. But yeah, I mean there’s a lot of preference based kind of things that we can do. Now the same device, like the type that you have where it does go over the are but very thin. Why are they’re can actually we can change the speaker on that. If you’re hearing got worse, you could change that with it, you know, and adjust it. There’s a lot that can be done there to really make sure that it fits you for a very, very long time well, and I think the other thing, hope that I found, which was really amazing, is that after the first week I was hearing sounds, you know, the spectrum of sound, so uniquely and so amazingly that sometimes I’d my brain had to adjust because I was like hearing these high you know, it sounded almost I said, it sounds kind of tinny. I use the word and of course, the audiologists that’s really really common. I’m going to dial it back a little bit so that your more going to hear that. But what I want you to do is when you come back next week, is let’s see how you do. Just I’m not going to take it all away. And it was interesting because the second week then I had her go ahead and put it back up to where it was. So obviously a lot of it has to do with your brain adjusting. Is that I mean, I’m sure that that’s really common exactly, and that’s you know, we we have an article on our website that says, you know, slow and steady when’s the race, and so I think that that’s what’s important, is that, you know, I compare it often times to walk into a pitch fuck room and flipping on a light switch, your immediate reaction to that is going to be turn it off, that’s too bright, this too much for me. And then if we were to dim that, let’s say we put it at about half, halfway on, and you’d say, well, that’s better, I can handle that. But after a while you’d realize, you know what, I’m not actually walking around this room as comfortably as I might if I could see a little better. And we know that with hearing it takes a little bit of time and then your brain kind of adjust to it and says how, you know, I wouldn’t want to miss any of this, you know, and so it is something that your brain actually has to learn to hear again. That is something that it’s actually a retraining of it all, because your brain actually learns to work with the hearing loss. So it’s actually trained itself. It’s physically wired to work with your hearing loss. And then it takes a how a month into there, and what we know from imaging studies is the brain physically rewires itself to work with new sound. So is actually learning to say, okay, I trust that this sound will be here and that I will be able to use it. So it has to kind of say this isn’t a fluke. It’s like saying I had back pain for ten years and I didn’t this morning. I’m not trusting it yet. So your brain learns. You know what is expected and how our body is working based on what information we’re getting at. So that does take time, but it is certainly something that what’s it learns it and hears it, then everything works a lot better. And in our next segment we’re going to talk about that human factor. I think what we want to do is really talk a little bit more about, you know, how to adjust, how easy it is, but even more so, just go into a little bit more of why, why not? Wait? Our why wait? Why not wait? And the point is, I guess hope is going to be right back with us right after this answers for elders radio show with Suzanne Newman. Hopes you found this podcast useful in your journey of navigating senior care. Check out more podcasts like this to help you find qualified senior care experts and areas of financial, legal, health and wellness and living options. Learn about our radio show, receive promotional discounts and meet our experts by clicking on the banner to join the Senior Advocate Network at answers for elders RADIOCOM. Now there is one place to find the answers for elders.