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Better Health D
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| SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2019
|
It has been estimated that only
1-in-5 PEOPLE
WHO NEED A HEARING AID ACTUALLY WEARS ONE.
By Anne-Gerard Flynn
the sound date back to around 1950 with the first fully digital Audiologist Susan Bankoski hearing aid introduced at the Chunyk of Hampden Hearing end of the 20th century. Center in East Longmeadow Today’s aids all come with thinks that is unfortunate. a computer chip that can be She has been fitting people programmed with the use of with hearing aids for more computer technology for an than 35 years and says today’s individual’s specific needs. technology has something for “The traditional type that just about everyone’s hearing features an aid behind the loss. ear has been updated with She said aids now are small- the new digital technology,” er and can be regulated more Chunyk said. discretely and that the com“They are all digital and puter chips inside them recog- have been for quite a while nize different sound types now.” and can be programmed to She added, “It is all about adjust volume accordingly as how smart and how advanced well as to meet an individual’s is that computer chip that is in specific hearing needs. there.” Bluetooth technology Bluetooth technology allows allows for direct streaming for wireless programming as of sound into the ears from well as streaming from smart smartphones and other devices. devices and, she adds, always “We can hook an individimproving applications from ual’s aid up to their smartmanufacturers enable those phone so the sound from telephones to act as remote conphone calls or from music and trols in adjusting volume and videos – any sound content on sound in a variety of settings their phone – can go directly as well. into their ears,” Chunyk said. “Sometimes people have “So, you have basically the idea that there is nothing turned the aids into wireless that can be done for them. headphones but what makes They might feel their hearing the aids better in my opinion is not bad enough or they than the wireless headphones might feel like their hearing that you buy from the store is so bad that nothing can be is that the sound is custom done,” Chunyk said. shaped for what an individu“Sometimes I find they were al’s ears need.” told 40 years ago, hearing She added, “They are fineaids won’t help you. If there is tuned specifically for their anyone who heard that, that hearing.” is not true today. The tech“The sound is being shaped nology can fit a wide range for what the individual needs of hearing losses from mild and they get the sound directto profound and, if it gets to ly streaming and on top of this the point where hearing aids manufacturers’ apps turn the don’t do the trick, we refer phone into a remote control people for a cochlear implant to make adjustments. A lot and they can have that and of people have trouble on that technology continues to the phone. It is not a matter get better, too.” of hearing the phone, it is a Efforts to address hearing matter of understanding the loss from damage to the inner words. It is the clarity.” ear date back centuries, but Chunyk said all but the small, one-piece devices with smallest of aids come with microphones to catch sounds, Bluetooth technology that amplifiers to enhance and allows the chip to use this send them to a speaker and wireless technology to be programmed from a computer. molds in the ear to channel Special to The Republican
“We can program so much into the computer chip when it is hooked up to the computer wirelessly because there is Bluetooth technology and this allows us to give people what they need where they need it without overdoing it,” Chunyk said. “There was a time when, if a person came in and had really good hearing for low pitches, for example, but not so good for high, we would say, ‘Go away and when your hearing
technology to help them.” She called the computer chip “the ringleader that tells everything what to do.” “With today’s technology, it will act differently depending on what sound is coming in,” Chunyk said. “It knows the difference between speech and not speech. The chip can control what the components of the aid do to make that work right. It knows soft, medium and loud sounds and because
tell her they want an aid that “will make all the background noise go away.” “Well, you don’t really want that and it can’t be done,” Chunyk said. “But what we want to make sure happens is that the technology will do what it needs to do so that the background noise won’t overwhelm what you are trying to listen to. It is not a perfect situation. It is not what our brains and ears do naturally but every level of technology, every level of improvement makes it that much better.” Chunyk said one type of hearing aid that has cornered a large share of today’s market has done so because the sound receiver is literally tucked into the ear. “The style might look similar to the traditional behind the ear, but what is different is that the speaker part actually sits inside your ear. If you think of this aid as a public announcement system, the part in the ear is the speaker,” Chunyk said. “It sits so much closer to your eardrum and this means sound does not have to travel down the tube to affect it. It is more natural. It also leaves the ear canal more open so people’s own voices sound good.” Sound travels down a wire into the speaker as electronic sound after it is processed by the computer chip. “The wearer can still use a Audiologist Susan Chunyk of Hampden Hearing Center has toggle on the case of the aid to been fitting people with aids for more than 35 years. She said adjust volume or use a smartcomputer chips turn today’s aids into smart devices. phone with an app to turn the (ANNE-GERARD FLYNN PHOTO) phone into a remote control to adjust volume on the computgets worse, come back.’ This we are programming the er,” Chunyk said. might have given the impres- sounds through the computer She added, “Through using sion that the person did not software, we can say if it is an app you can adjust the need hearing aids, which was a soft sound, we want this volume, you can select among not necessarily true. We just much power. We want very different programs.” did not have the technology to little or no power if it is a loud “Sometimes we will set up help them. Now, if someone sound. We just want it to go settings for music or a specific just has a mild or moderate right through. If it is average kind of listening situation degree of hearing loss, they sound, give the person this like church or a classroom are struggling, especially in much.” – some place specific where background noise, we have Chunyk said that people will you spend time but are having
trouble different from your general listening situation,” Chunyk said. “You can have up to four different programs that you can select through the app and say, for example, ‘OK, now I am on my music program,’ and you can do all of that through the phone. You can make adjustments automatically.” Chunyk said that she “recently had a woman who uses the receiver-in-the-ear style come in for her progress check.” “The time before we paired her aid with her iPhone so she could stream phone calls hands free and during the progress check we paired her iPad because she said she wanted to do FaceTime with her family,” said Chunyk of the aid whose battery is rechargeable. “The manufacturer has a new app that just came out and we went over all that and now she can talk directly to her family out on the other coast and have it stream directly into her devices.” The use of what Chunyk called “real ear” or “probe microphone” measurements allow audiologists to ensure a hearing aid’s optimal amplification for the individual using it. This involves the placement of tiny microphones in each ear canal to measure the canal’s influence on sound with and without an aid. The test basically measures what is gained in terms of sound from the use of the hearing aid and what adjustments need to be made to match sound quality prescribed for the best benefit. “Real ear or probe microphone measurements allow us when we first fit someone with an aid to adjust the aid’s settings where we think the person will be, but then make a physical measurement,” Chunyk said. SEE HEARING, PAGE D2