Time to read: 10 minutes
Part 3 of the video series on Starkey Livio Custom Rechargeable hearing aids. In this video, Emma catches up with Fred to follow up on how he's managing and hearing with his Starkey Livio custom rechargeable hearing aids since his fitting appointment.
Hi there, welcome back to Value Hearing’s YouTube channel.
I am a clinical audiologist, my name is Emma and today I'm going to give you an update on Fred who you may have seen a few weeks ago having his Starkey custom rechargeable hearing aids fitted for the first time.
In fact it was my first opportunity to fit the new rechargeable in-the-ear hearing aids which was very exciting. So, I got to catch up with Fred, so we will be giving you some little snippets of the feedback from Fred on how he's hearing and how he's coping with his new technology.
When I went to visit Fred at home I had a number of things to do. One I had to check that he had actually managed the hearing aids okay.
Emma: How has the charging been with putting it in its little box at night time? The hearing aids?
Fred: Never been a problem.
Emma: Okay good, good so you find it quite easy to handle?
Fred: Very easy, yeah good.
Emma: And getting them in and out of your ears obviously you have no problem with it all do you?
Fred: No, no, no.
Emma: So that's all been pretty straightforward. Good so that's exactly what we hope for Fred isn't it? How often do you wear your hearing aids now, Fred?
Fred: Well, I wear them virtually every day. I think if I didn't have them on I would miss it.
Emma: So Fred, now when I saw you after two weeks of wearing them you reported to me that you were finding the world very noisy and they were a bit loud for you, you felt but we actually didn't make any changes. And now we're two weeks on, do you think you've gotten used to them.
Fred: Probably I would imagine, sure, yeah.
Emma: Do you find background noise too noisy anymore?
Fred: Oh very often I have background noises that are a nuisance, yeah.
Emma: And that's new to you do you think?
Fred: Yeah, so it was just the wooden floors that was obvious then can you change that for me?
Fred did want to take some control he doesn't have a smartphone so we thankfully with Starkey there is a remote control option so we got him a little remote control for him to use which he was very excited about, which just means that he can turn it up and down as he pleases.
As he mentions there was a lot of background noise that would bother him at times, so he likes the idea of being able just to give himself a bit of comfort and obviously he will probably still get in situations where he may be speaking to someone very softly spoken and he'll be able to turn the volume up for himself.
As Fred gets more confident with it I'll probably add some extra programs for him to try and play with for listening to music and listening in lots of different environments as he gets more and more comfortable with the hearing aids.
The next thing we do in a follow-up appointment is we go through what we call the cosy goals so these are just simply goals that we've set together at the very beginning of your hearing journey and deciding where do we want to see improvement in quality of life - where do we want to hear better or understand speech better?
So with Fred you'll see in the video, I asked him how he was going with his goals and it is all
very, very positive feedback. When we first had an appointment together we had to put together some goals for us to achieve with the new hearing aids.
Emma: Now number one for you that you told me was when you're not living in a pandemic
you like to socialise a lot and you would really like to be able to understand most of the conversation.
Fred: I remember, yeah.
Emma: When you're in a big group of people. Now, have you been in a group of people much in the last couple of weeks?
Fred: Definitely family dinners in their homes but not eating out. I haven't eaten out at all,
Yeah.
Emma: Now tell me this, with the family dinners did you feel that you were hearing most of what was being said?
Fred: Nearly all of it.
Emma: You mentioned that you liked watching a lot of TV documentaries and news and whatnot right? That you actually understood the TV quite well but you had to have the volume up very high? So how would you say you're going now. I mean, I walked in earlier and the TV was down at a comfortable level for me.
Fred: Yeah.
Emma: You feel that would you say that?
Fred: No, no I can now control; it's certainly better.
Emma: What about music? How's that sounding?
Fred: I have music playing literally on the radio all the time. I hear clearly particularly, particular composers and compositions and I get the full benefit
Emma: You feel the hearing aids have improved your hearing or even just your life and quality of life?
Fred: Oh like all the difference.
Emma: Okay, tell me more.
Fred: It helps me to get on with life. No, no I've got no regrets for spending that sort of money and getting exactly what I want. Good. No regrets. Not one little bit.
Emma: Not even now that you can hear your wooden floor squeaking?
Fred laughs.
So as you can see Fred is doing really well, hearing much better and has indicated that it has really improved his quality of life. Fred's hearing loss is a hearing loss that is very easy to treat and certainly Fred is someone who was a joy to help hear better.
The challenge was always going to be for Fred something that he accepted cosmetically, something that was easy to handle, easy to charge and clean not having to manage batteries and we've achieved that thanks to the innovation in the technology.
Fred also definitely needed something that sounded natural and was easy to get used to and would allow him to appreciate things like music and being able to hear in quite large social groups. That is not easy for every hearing aid out there so it was really great feedback to hear from him, that he's finding music, which he's very passionate about, really enjoyable to listen to with his Starkey hearing aids.
