Recently my blog has been a bit of a historical approach (courtesy of my Dad’s book) to how to manage the changing dynamics of our hearing world, and a few mentions of some other helping technologies such as feedback management.  I have tagged this blog “unconstrained by the ways things used to be done” – that’s because I believe it’s time to do things differently with hearing aids.  It’s time to throw away most of the old text books and to stop talking about hearing aids as though they are all the same.

I believe that much of health care has become a “passing on of wisdom” sort of profession.  But when current wisdom was passed down (and down again) we didn’t have the tools we have today.  We can do things differently now, because we have tools that we didn’t dream of 50 years ago.  We can do things very differently.  So that’s how come that today I am building a hearing aid company with a difference.  At Blamey & Saunders, our customers personalise their own hearing aids and save money.  I don’t believe that our hearing aid users need to know how the hearing aids work unless they want to, and some of our hearing aid users like to know a lot about how they work.    But that’s much the same with any technology in the home, isn’t it?   Our hearing aid users seek something that works, is supported by good service and that costs a reasonable amount.

Deteriorating hearing sort of sneaks up on people.  My Dad had  a different story.  He lost his hearing in his 20s, fairly suddenly.   But the type of hearing loss that we get as we get older sneaks upon us  and affects our ability to hear clearly, rather than our ability to hear at all.  Most people start to notice these effects in their 50s, but sometimes sooner.  Most people just put up with it, and find, even subconsciously,  strategies to cope.  It might be by talking louder, it might be by controlling the conversation, it might be by never going out., it might be by blaming the world (at about 50 the world becomes full of high pitched voices, mumblers and difficult accents).  Often we don’t know that we are changing our ways like this.   But behind scenes, our hearing pathways are not taking enough information to the brain, and the hearing processes are gradually deteriorating, and it is  hard to get them working again.   It gets harder and harder to use our previously sophisticated listening skills.   So we really would be better to do something. That something is usually to Take Control of Your Hearing, and start to use high quality hearing aids.   You need the sort of quality that will keep sound as natural as possible; is personalised to you, and that feels comfortable in your ears.