Date: Sun, 31 Aug 2008 16:39:07 -0400
From: John Dykers, MD
Subject: hearing aid
MARK HAMILTON comes to my office on Thursdays to fit hearing aids, and he is capable, conscientious, pleasant, and careful with patient’s money! I don’t know what brand of hearing aid he prefers and I think that is because he uses all of them as best suits any particular patient. (He only rents space cheaply because he is a pleasant tenant and a conscientious provider and I have no economic interest in his business.)
I screen hearing with all my physicals and I have a couple of the simple high pitch screening gadgets and you can have one for the senior centers and screen anybody there any time. It is really easy.
The thing to watch for is missing conversation in group settings. This is a loss of “discrimination”. One can hear just fine one – on- one head on in a quiet room. But when the speaker is around a corner, or back is turned, or there is competing noise, speech is not understood. THIS IS ISOLATING FOR FOLKS, and leads to progressive mental deterioration and depression. If this messes up one’s TV enjoyment the most economical and effective solution there is headphones attached to the TV. Then one can enjoy adequate volume without blasting everyone else out of the house!
Another useful money saver is the inexpensive pocket microphones at Radio Shack. They turn OFF easily too when you don’t want to hear bothersome noises!
An important money saving and aggravation reducing trick is to USE ONLY ONE hearing aid and put it in the BETTER ear. One sacrifices STERIOPSIS, that is, you can’t tell as well where the sound is coming from, but you can hear the train coming and you can understand speech. Many of the complaints people have with their hearing aids is derived from trying to get perfect youthful hearing and the static that results; one hears too much background noise and the discrimination problem is not helped. (Another example of perfect is the enemy of good!)
John Dykers
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