Comment by RHSeeger | Hacker News Reader

Comment by RHSeeger | Hacker News Reader

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> There is far more to fixing your hearing issues that just amplifying sound. Sadly, most people wait too long before trying a hearing aid, and give up because they hear too much noise.

Of the people I know who have gotten hearing aids, every single one of them was disappointed. Every single one of them still had trouble hearing. As far as I can tell, the only thing the audiologists appear to be able to be able to correct for (with current hearing aids) is "make it louder". If more than that is needed, it's a vicious cycle of taking it home, realizing it's not really helping, and bringing it back to try a new one.

The above seems to be particularly true when the hearing problem is heavily weighed towards not being able to hear certain/higher frequencies, so can "hear" people talking, but can't understand it; especially if there's any background noise at all.

I sympathize that your job was hard and that the clients made it harder. But the clients following directions and trying multiple different hearing aids ... doesn't really solve the problem in a lot of cases. Hearing aids are very expensive, far too expensive for a result of "I still can't understand people talking to me".

Perhaps it is because most of those people expected the hearing aid to work for them, and did not want to do any of the work they needed to do themselves.

Imagine not reading for 10 years because of bad eyesight, eye glasses do not make it so your brain can read, but instead makes it easier for your brain to see the symbols. your brain still needs to decode and comprehend them.

Our hearing system is far more complicated. You can look in the direction you want to see....but you hear all around you, even through walls.

You cannot stop hearing, even in your sleep. It is far more crucial to our environmental awareness than more people realize.

> Perhaps it is because most of those people expected the hearing aid to work for them, and did not want to do any of the work they needed to do themselves.

Or, alternatively, it's exactly what I said and the device + audiologist combination just isn't up to correcting a lot of common hearing issues. That seems far more likely than the vast majority of people doing everything wrong.

This honestly doesn't sound very empathetic toward patients. Many of these people had fine hearing and then lost it. They've already "learned" how to hear and they reasonably expect the hearing aid to help restore it.

In your analogy, it would be like if my vision got worse and I got eyeglasses which partially restored it, but mirrored everything upside down with tons of static. Now I've got to learn to read upside down and tune out the static, but don't worry because I get 10 free lessons with a reading instructor. Oh and none of this was clearly explained to me or part of my expectation when buying glasses.

A better analogy is what if your vision loss was not only clarity, but also brightness?

And once you put on your glasses everything is brighter.

You need to adjust to the change, and then slowley adapt.

Now what if putting on the glasses meant you saw far more on your peripheral vision?

This too would be a big change and a barrier to getting better.

I got high quality progressive eyeglasses some years ago. Hated it at first. It was like swimming in a fish bowl. If you don't position your head correctly things are blurry. Now it's completely natural and I love them. I had to learn.

Hearing aids are the exact same. It's slightly unnatural but once you learn how to use the tool, it's a super power. I can hear conversations in crowded bars when normal people can't. Loud noises compress in a pleasant fashion. I just have to get used to some occasional spatial distortion and subtle flanging

The thing is, though, that it appears to be very different depending on the person. And there seems to be a LOT of cases where the technology just isn't up to the task. Sure, we _can_ blame the user in every case, but if the cases are highly skewed to the users have a poor experience / not hearing well with them, then really it makes more sense to blame the technology until you have proof otherwise.

> it's a vicious cycle of taking it home, realizing it's not really helping, and bringing it back to try a new one.

Sounds like the calibration needs to happen in the home, not the doctor's office.

That sometimes was benificial, but mostly with just one n one and TV. Those you can control, but what about when a few more people come over? Or when the neighbor is mowing their lawn?

Many companies have remote adjustment now. They connect online and the user and audiologist talk on video.

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