Re: Hearing Aids and Music

On Wed, 29 Mar 2006 18:45:03 -0500, "Kol_Isha" <kol_isha@xxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:


"Ken Cashion" <kcashion@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:tc1m22deshrpbm24o5dmuct8qjobc75i3r@xxxxxxxxxx
On Wed, 29 Mar 2006 15:32:53 -0500, "Geezer" <NOSPAM@xxxxxxx> wrote:


It'll be a few more years for my but I already have significant losses at
specific frequencies.

Very common, but the losses occur where there are the "sss" sounds.
Drop that from many words and you hear a different word or none you
recognize. We all say, "I am sorry. I heard you but I didn't
understand you." Watch the mouth. Sometimes that is as good as a
hearing aid...for a while.



Well, this is interesting, Ken. I am very aware of the fact... and have
been for a while... that I depend a LOT on visual cues. Not that I'm
really lip reading... but if people cover their mouths, I have a difficult
time hearing them. (This is, as I said, a problem with depressed patients,
who often look down when they're talking to you, and avoid eye contact, and
if they're not looking at me and I can't see their face, then I have a much
harder time hearing them). Also.... people laugh at me when I say this,
but... when I first wake up in the morning, before I put in my contact
lenses, I can't hear. Without thinking I'll sometimes say, "Wait, I can't
hear you... let me put in my contact lenses."

That does seem strange but I know what you mean. I can't see much at
all without my glasses.

The thing about the frequencies, though... you mentioned this in your other
post as well... about difficulty understanding certain words and hearing
aids filtering out certain frequencies. I had never given this much
thought, but the audiologist spent a lot of time talking with me about
different types of hearing losses. According to what she told me, many
people with "age related" hearing loss have this problem. They lose certain
frequencies, and so when you test them, their hearing will be fine in
certain ranges and then suddenly, as you get into higher frequencies, the
chart takes a nose dive. She explained that for those people, they
sometimes don't respond as well to hearing aids because, even with the
amplification, they continue to have problems with certain frequencies and
therefore they confuse words.

This is true if the hearing aid is a flat response amp and the inputs
are all made louder by some set amount.

I have once-a-year charts for my ears for nearly 20 years. I know
when I was sent back into the test booth because of a sudden change.
The chart went a long pretty much matching last year and then at 3K
there was a sharp roll-off way down and then it came back up slowly.

The hearing aid I would need would need some gain for all frequencies
to get the sounds I normally hear up to where they should be because
my ear would be blocked for those sounds, but in the frequencies where
I have little detection, the amp would boost the heck out of those to
make up for the hearing loss. This is very common in age-related
hearing loss...it is so common, the off-the-shelf hearing aids have
that basic correction programmed into them. My $50 ones are digital
and have a shaped response.

Bettie put on one of mine and immediately made a face. She said that
everything sounded real "tinny." Well, it should to her with
virtually no hearing loss. This was the way I found out that the
response was shaped like I thought they were.

Apparently, this is NOT my problem. I have
nerve damage. As she explained it... I haven't lost much in the upper or
lower frequencies. My chart is pretty even both in the lower and upper
ranges. It's just that I lose as far as VOLUME goes, so as soon as the
volume drops below a certain point, I simply can't hear it. If the sound is
loud enough for me to hear, I hear everything just fine and I don't
misunderstand words. She said that's actually good, because I would
apparently respond well to hearing aids in that as soon as the volume was
high enough, I'd be able to hear much better. Now that you've all made me
think about it, I'm wondering of course what soft noises I simply am not
hearing now, and if I suddenly could hear them, if I would like it or hate
it

Yes, with nerve damage, that is the case. There would be very little
shaping. You would need some fairly wide-band amplifying. My mother
became this way and now at 94, that is her problem. It wasn't when
she first got hearing aids. Which was the same condition her five
sisters and two brothers had...exactly. So I have gotten most of my
Mom's genetic strengths. Good blood pressure, good teeth, low
cholesterol, but bad, bad hearing.

This is all confusing, of course. I don't really understand any of it
yet. I guess my research is just beginning.

Arlene, someone who understands guitar and recording EQs can draw you
a few little pictures and it would be perfectly clear. A good pair of
earphones, a good mic, and level output from an amp into an EQ and you
would have a perfect hearing test. Someone could even show you the
shape of your hearing by the reciprocal of the curve of the band
settings.

There can be medical problems and if the trust is in the doctor, the
patient's understanding or not would make little difference, but with
hearing problems, the more the fellow understand, the easier time he
will have and the better they will work for him.

People being unhappy with hearing aids are usually due to unreal
expectations (lack of information) and over-selling by cardiologists.
The patient had better know almost as much as the cardiologist to get
the best service.

Ken
.

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