(Editor:Dad has been describing how to manage changes in sound intensity around him, and how to get practiced with a volume control.  He continues….)

From the book: “But if it works, keep it going for a time, then try walking about with the conversation still in progress and add a few ordinary household noises – putting the kettle on for instance, making a cup of tea.  You may very well find that you conversation runds nit difficulty during this phase and you find yourself saying “eh?” after every opening from your accomplice.  Try increasing the volume a little.  This might work, but if it does, turn it down again as soon as you sit down and resume the conversation face-to-face” (Editor; if you set up the Blamey & Saunders IHearYou system during the first phase of this, you will hopefully not have to ask your accomplice to repeat themselves, nor should you have to change the hearing aid volume as it should be set to be  comfortable and audible.  If it isn’t, go back to the computer and increase the volume.  The sound quality won’t change, but you will make listening easier. From the book again:) “It might not work however – you might find that alhough the speech volume is increased, the bacground noise volume is also increased to the point where it swamps conversation.” (Editor: this shouldn’t happen with our hearing aids unless the background noise is very loud and very wide spectrum.  The sound in each of the 32 bands will be kept optimised, so only the noisy bands will be turned down.  I wish my Dad had been able to use our hearing aids.  They weren’t invented when he was alive.)

“There is an important lesson here – on many occasions when it seems desirable to increase the volume, it is actually better to turn it down a little to maintain a better balance between that which you wish to hear and extraneous noise.”  (Editor: this is an interesting comment which will still be true today with some hearing aids.  Dad was a very diligent hearing aid user, and determined to get the best out of them.  That is an important lesson to anyone with a hearing aid today.  SOme professionals would disagree with the advice, but some professionals will actually encourage this, or even change your hearing aid settings to achieve this.  We’ve encountered situations in our clinic when people have come in with hearing aids that have been set up below their audibility level.)

“But back to our experiment with conversation.  It is possible that by increasing the volume all that happens is that the aid squeaks.  In that case you have gone too far.  Just turn it down again until it no longer squeaks, and resort to other tactics – turn round, sit down, try another position in the room..  But you will have learned how far your new aid can help you in that close situation.” (Editor: Feedback cancellers have improved massively since then, and Blamey & Saunders Hearing aids have an exceptionally good, patent pending hearing aid feedback canceller.  It is partly why we can fit such a wide range of people with Open fit hearing aids – that combined with the ultra-low processing delay).  However, if you have got a different hearing aid to ours, and it squeaks too much, go back to your audiologist, and get it adjusted.  No-one today should put up with a persistently squeaking hearing aid.  More on Feedback cancellation another day).