Cheaper Hearing-Assist Devices – YES; Online Hearing Tests – NO

We can’t claim that our post a week ago, concerning iPhone earbuds and hearing aids, triggered The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) article urging Trump to appoint a savvy FDA (Food and Drug Administration) head who could pressure the hearing aid industry to offer substantially lower-priced solutions. Actually, the FDA had already in early December 2016 announced that it would (a) stop enforcing the requirement that patients get a prescription from a highly-trained and degreed specialist (audiologist) before thay can purchase hearing aids, and (b) consider creating a new category of over-the-counter products.

THE FACT THAT THERE ARE NO PRODUCT-BY-PRODUCT REPORTS (ONLY A BASIC GUIDE TO THE CATEGORY AS A WHOLE) ABOUT HEARING ASSISTANCE DEVICES FROM THE CONSUMER REPORTS ORGANIZATION SHOULD IMMEDIATELY TRIGGER SUSPICION ABOUT THIS CATEGORY OF PRODUCTS.

But thanks to our continual tracking of hearing issues and technology, we can correct some of the vagueness, omissions, and errors in the recent WSJ article. Two items were particularly wide of the mark. First was what they called an “over-the-counter hearing device”. There are two types of hearing devices— “true” hearing aids (medical devices that are regulated by national government authorities in most countries) and small audio amplifiers often called PSAPs (Personal Sound Amplification Products). Hearing aids are expensive (typically $1,500-6,000), may not be covered (even for military veterans) by medical insurance, and are mostly sold by small and specialized organizations who employ highly-trained audiologists. (An interesting exception is Costco, which sells units (made by Sivantos, formerly Siemens) only in the low-priced end of the range and appears to have—or is in the process of recruiting–degreed audiologists.) PSAPs cost as little as $30 and as much as about $750 (including both left and right ears). The WSJ article was vague, but apparently it was advocating that hearing aids should be sold without a prescription. However, given the difference in price ranges, they well could have been talking mainly about PSAPs. We have personally had highly mixed results with PSAPs. The $30 models were, unsurprisingly, junk. The highly-publicized (because of its design based on the R&D conducted by the noted Dr. Rodney Perkins) Soundhawk brand quickly went bankrupt (pretty-but-operationally-challenged design and poor customer service due to its low-budget phone-and-web nature). The clunky-looking models from PerfectChoiceHD and SoundWorld Solutions sell in the $350-750 range and MAY be adequate for many people with only modest hearing problems. We tested the SoundWorld Solutions model but could not find much or any hearing improvement.

Second was the article’s advice to take a free online hearing test. We reviewed 15 different ones. With one exception, they were useless or even worse. Some of them were disguised self-serving means of prospecting for potential customers because they required you to register. We realize that it is good business not to give away what you sell, but the tests weren’t very good anyway (some were just a few multiple-test questions). Others required you to wear headphones or use a telephone, which would potentially add a lot of noise that compromised the test (and likely preclude your wearing any PSAPs for comparison purposes). The exception was the innovative innovative Online Hearing Test and Audiogram Printout, which enabled us to create a crude hearing loss vs. frequency curve like the one that illustrates this post. But this curve, or the better ones prepared by trained audiologists using professional equipment, appears to be essentially useless, and mainly a selling tool of audiologists. It is unlikely to help anyone purchase a PSAP. It MIGHT give SOME guidance in selecting a hearing aid, but the features, appearance, and—most importantly—actual experience during the warranty period are likely far more important.

Does Generation Gap Prevent Earbuds’ Serving as Hearing Aids?

When Apple announced the iPhone 7 in September 2016, there was much gnashing of teeth because of its omission of a headphone jack. But after the furor died down, the main complaint became the $160 price of the Apple AirPods, which are reckoned to be the best alternative as of December 2016.

Few among us would call the AirPods attractive, but because they are from Apple they have a lot of cachet. But they are unattractive in a different way from the way that conventional hearing aids are unattractive. The old saw “ children should be seen but not heard” becomes “hearing aids should be heard but not seen”. Most hearing aids look like something that many iPhone users’ grandparents might use, which is the reason that so many older folks resist using them. At least in Silicon Valley, most people would prefer to look geeky than to look senile.

While the Apple AirPods are functionally attractive, they are not aesthetically attractive. But a bunch of competitors, attracted by the big market, are offering attractive ones. Unfortunately, at least some of these are crowdfunded, with ambitious plans but little chance for success. So their customers should be wary that they may have to endure long delays and ultimate failures.

If you are asking yourself why some of these attractive ear buds can’t include the capabilities of hearing aids, or at least the capabilities of their little sibling–PSAPs (Personal Sound Amplification Products), so are we. Some of the hearing aid companies now have models that work with the iPhone, but they have kept the old-fashioned ugliness. Ditto the Sound World Solutions PSAP. Only the now-defunct Soundhawk had a design that looked geeky but modern. The bottom line: we can only hope that SOMEONE figures it out.

Men (and Women) Can Lose Their Hearing by Listening to Loud Music

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You can lose a little or a lot of your hearing by listening too much with the volume turned up on your iPod or iPhone, or other device, because many of the earbuds in use aren’t very effective so people turn up the volume. Studies have found that users of these Apple devices can be listening at 100-105 decibels. This is well above the OSHA-recommended 85 decibels.

Remember, ears that get damaged stay damaged. They can’t be repaired. And when people talk about decibels (dBA), which is how loudness is measured, we need to remember that they are logarithmic, so that a small increase in the number means a big increase in the noise level (adding 10 dBA DOUBLES the noise level).

If you are socially-inclined and attend galas, they nearly always have dancing, to either a band or a DJ (sometimes a worse bet volume-wise because he has lots of watts at his command). Unfortunately, they almost always have live auctions too, and often when the auctioneer comes on the sound gets louder. (A similar boost happens sometimes when the ads play on radio or TV.) We recommend that you always carry earplugs, and use them when things get too loud. It’s a lot better than suffering hearing loss for the rest of your life.

Sources of Wisdom for Combatting Hearing Loss

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Those men (and women) who have decided to do something about their hearing loss can find it challenging to get accurate and objective information about assisted-hearing devices. The result for many of them is spending a lot of time with trial-and-error to find a usable solution, and that they end up with no usable device. The culprit may well be that the great multitide of different manufacturers and models of hearing aids and personal sound amplification products (PSAPs) is not matched by reliable comparisons of specifications and analysis of plusses and minuses. One would expect that Consumer Reports would be a good source, but although they offer a good general overview,it is difficult/impossible to find how one can actually BUY their reviews. Fortunately there is an authoritative and objective free website that contains a wealth of information that can be helpful before and during their journey. Three of the most helpful “Sections” are Better Hearing Consumer featuring Gael Hannan, Hearing Economics featuring Holly Hosford-Dunn, and Wayne’s World featuring Dr. Wayne Staab.

Hearing Loss Causes Early Deaths But Is Preventable

Why won’t men get hearing aids? Actually, both genders resist dealing with their age-related hearing declines. There’s an excellent article about hearing aids in general.

Some of the following information comes from it, but we have pursued a lot of sources, including some scholarly ones. Large numbers of older people have hearing loss (one source says 55 percent of those over 70), but most of them don’t deal with it (a different source says that only 14 percent of the 27 million over 50 with impaired hearing use a hearing aid). Some of the reasons for this include: (1) denial that they have a problem, (2) resistance to change, (3) the stigma of old age, (4) vanity, and (5) cost (hearing aids are expensive, and most are not paid for by medical insurance). But men and women deal with hearing decline differently: men consider a sign of weakness, while women worry that it makes them appear old.

Actually, some of the reasons that men die younger than women are the same that cause them to be deafer sooner. More men than women are exposed to loud noises because of military service (though women are now welcomed into combat roles (be careful what you wish for, ladies!), noisy occupations such as construction, and similar occupations. One can argue that both genders listen to too-loud music, but males appear to do it longer and louder, perhaps because they act macho.

Poor hearing in itself causes a lower quality of life because one is not fully informed or entertained, and does not participate fully in social situations. But the problem does not stop there. It worsens relationships with acquaintances and loved ones, leads to dementia, and can even cause accidents (especially falls)