Oticon ends online hearing aid sales

Oticon’s new distribution guidelines state that they will only supply their products to distributors who directly fit and sell Oticon products to end-users through face-to-face in-person consultations. These new guidelines effectively bring an end to customers being able to buy Oticon products via the Internet, mail order or catalogues.

In a –>press release, The American Academy of Audiology welcomes Oticon’s decision and hopes that other hearing aid manufacturers will follow suit.

I agree with the AAoA’s press release in that customers will receive a better service from a face-to-face transaction. Having said that, –>America Hears seem to have a good online service. Although the face-to-face service may be more beneficial to customers who have no idea of their hearing aid needs or what type of aid they require, online options like America Hears may offer a cheaper and perfectly adequate option for people who already own aids and are more inclined to know what they want.

Any comments? have you bought hearing aids online? Are you happy with them? If you haven’t bought online, would you consider it?

Manufacturer’s of digital hearing aids supply audiologists with computer software that allows them to change an aid’s settings. The audiologist can add or remove preset programmes and adjust various sound levels.

I think it would be really useful if us hearing aid wearers could have our own version of the software so that we could make modifications to our aid’s settings ourselves. This would be particularly useful when new aids are being trialled as it’s likely that during this time a lot of tweaks are going to be made to try and get them just right. If we could make some of the tweaks ourselves it would save trips to the audiologist, useful if you don’t live close or if the audiologist is very busy and you have to wait a while to get your aid modified.

Because most of us aren’t trained audiologists, our software would have to be simplified from what the audiologist would use. And that’s fine because it would be enough to give people basic functions with which they can tweak their aid’s settings.

Here’s some of the things I think could be safely modified by a wearer using personal-software:

• Overall volume up / volume down
• Add / remove / edit programme
• Run or remove feedback dampener
• Specific-range volume up or down

Possibly the user could select boxes that indicate a problem they are having with a certain sound range – they could select options like, “I can’t hear deep male voices”, “I can’t hear the telephone” and so on. Once they’ve made selections, the software could up the volume to try and help the particular problem.

The software could ask the user to listen to tones and then adjust the aid accordingly – like a hearing test. The software could come supplied with a ‘buzzer’ that the wearer presses when the hear a sound. Your own personal hearing test! Obviously this wouldn’t be a controlled test and wouldn’t be conducted in a soundproof environment. But it may allow people to make some modifications themselves.

It would be very important for the software to be able to undo any of the changes that the user makes. The user needs to be able to undo anything they change that doesn’t sound right. It would also be good for the user to be able to revert to the audiologists default settings.

I think that if personal hearing aid modification software was designed that was easy to use and foolproof then many people would be able to safely use it without damaging their aids or their ears. Maybe we wouldn’t be putting the audiologists out of business just yet, but we’d certainly cut down on their workload.

I previously wrote about how letting hearing aid wearers program their letting hearing aid wearers program their own aids would be good thing. To briefly recap: I think that giving us wearers a simplified version of the software that audiologists use to program digital hearing aids to an individual’s requirements would allow us to get maximum benefit from our aids.

A comment from David made me realise I’d missed a few important things in that article and got me thinking some more….

One application to rule them all

As far as I am aware, the current situation is that each hearing aid manufacturer has their own software that an audiologist will use to adjust settings for their aids only. Having numerous different applications to use has many problems:

• The patient’s audiogram has to be loaded into each piece of software individually. In some cases, I have seen my audiologist enter it manually. This wastes time and there’s the possibility that the audiogram details may be entered incorrectly.
• The audiologist has to learn how to use all the different applications.
• Some applications may have specific features that the audiologist really likes and they’d like to be able to use them when fitting any aid brand.
• Each application has their own helpline. More number to remember and the audiologist may find themselves repeating the same problem to multiple helpline operators.

So, I’d really like to see an open standard for digital hearing aid connectivity and programming. If manufacturers collaborated on this they could save themselves time and money on software development, make audiologists lives easier AND produce a simplified version of the software for aid wearers.

I’d could go on and on here about how joint development and open standards could make better hearing aid software but this isn’t a software development blog so I’ll stop it there!

A charity based in Dunmow, UK are seeking volunteers to ensure that they can continue to offer hearing services to the local community.

Hearing Help Uttlesford (HHU) assisted more than 300 people in the community who use hearing aids this year, but now its services could be under threat.

Chairman Yvonne Morton said: “We are only a small charity with eight volunteers, but now a couple want to retire so we are on the lookout for people to take their place, particularly in the Dunmow area.”

HHU volunteers run drop-in surgeries once a month in Saffron Walden, Dunmow, Stansted and Thaxted for people who use National Health hearing aids. They also make home visits.

The volunteers carry out minor services to the hearing aids, such as unclogging the tubes, to makes sure they are working efficiently and to save the patients a trip to the audiology clinic.

“Our volunteers will also talk to the patients about the latest technology to help them overcome specific hearing problems, such as being able to hear the television without deafening everybody else in the house, or being able to hear the doorbell or telephone,” said Mrs Morton.

HHU will help anybody in the district with a need, but they encourage people to become members for £3 a year.

The subscription helps to pay for the volunteers’ expenses and any equipment that is required, and entitles members to the newsletter and regular meetings.

“The members’ meetings are always very informative,” said Mrs Morton. “Last year we had someone come and talk to us about hearing dogs for the deaf.”

The charity is currently running a weekly lip reading class in Saffron Walden, but since Essex County Council cut its concessions for senior citizens on education classes, the service is under threat.

Mrs Morton said: “Most of the people who come to the class are over 60 and collecting their pensions, so cannot afford to pay for it.

“We have secured £1000 of funding to keep the class running for next term, but we are living a hand to mouth existence. We need funding to secure the lip reading class long term.”

HHU would like to hear from anyone interested in volunteering for the charity. Full training will be provided.

People interested in fund-raising for the charity are also being sought. For more information, call Yvonne Morton on 01799 525000 or during the evening on 01799 525398.

Why is there no established market for second hand hearing aids? Given the high price of a new aid, you would think that a cheaper second-hand model would be very tempting to a lot of people.

It’s not so different from buying a second hand car

The second-hand car market is huge. People have the option of buying privately and taking some risk on the quality of the car or they can buy a re-conditioned/serviced/checked car from a dealer. The same could apply to hearing aids: buy a known working model from a vendor or change your luck buying directly from John Doe.

Plenty of stock

Just how many unused hearing aids  unused hearing aids are lying around doing nothing? And how many of those hearing aids have been worn only once or not at all? If someone has paid a lot of money for them then they may not prepared to give them away to charity, so why not sell them to someone who is going make use of them? As well as all the unused new models, how many people have upgraded and left their old aids lying around doing nothing?

Fitting

No two people are going to have exactly the same ear shape to changes would of course be needed to allow the buyer to use their second hand purchase. A new shell would be needed for in-the-ear models; new tubing and a new mould would probably be required for over-the-ear models. Manufacturers will create new shells/moulds for a price – they already do.

Reconditioning

A digital aid would need to be re-programmed for the new wearer. Audiologists / vendors already supply programming services so there is no problem here. With an audiogram, the programming process should be simple for an experienced audiologist.

I don’t see any real big barrier to a second-hand hearing aid market and I’m sure there is a huge number of customers out there waiting to buy cheaper hearing aids.

It’s all about cool at the moment, isn’t it? Widex bling. Phonak making personal communications aids. Looks like hearing aid dispenser Amplifon want in on the act as they have employed Saatchi & Saatchi to improve their brand image. Industry@Saatchi strategy partner Andy Bell says: “Getting a hearing aid is thought of as a negative experience, something that many consumers will avoid for as long as possible. “We want to change the perceptions of the UK consumer and turn Amplifon into a Lovemark.” From: http://www.marketingweek.co.uk/item/57617/254/260/3

Bionica Corp have filed patents relating to their Clio hearing aid. Up until now they have been very quiet about the Clio but now Bionica’s chief executive officer, Peter T. Hahn, given some details of it’s design.

The Clio’s controls are simple to operate, modeled after popular digital music players, Hahn said in an interview. The acoustic feedback triggered by many hearing aides, he said, was eliminated by separating the microphone from the speaker.

A “very powerful” microprocessor, specially designed software and a strategic microphone array will help distinguish between speech and background noise, Hahn said.

The Clio has also been built to adapt to various settings, with special software “programs” designed to interpret door bells, house alarms and TVs. Different programs will activate different microphones depending on the situation, according to the company, founded two years ago.

Users will be able to scroll through a menu of the programs using a hand-held device that Bionica compares to an Apple iPhone. It will contain a radio frequency module that communicates with an earpiece.

“We have solved problems very uniquely,” said Hahn, a veteran of the medical-device industry who was hired by Bionica in February.

Several hearing aids already on the market incorporate hand-held controls and sophisticated software programs. But Beckman said Bionica’s technology is innovative, drawing on techniques used in the consumer electronics market.

“Just because they say this is the setting for a concert hall does not mean that’s what you’re going to hear,” Beckman said. “They sound worse than a cheap radio.”

Bionica does not expect to market the Clio until at least 2009.

I think the iPhone-like controls will be very interesting – it would help give the Clio that cool factor. The separating of the microphone from the speaker and the special software programs don’t sound particularly revolutionary but I guess we’ll have to wait and see. Another player on the market, who’ll increase competition and hopefully lower prices, must be a good thing.

News found at –>projo.com

William Austin, founder and chief executive of Starkey Laboratories in Eden Prairie, has long been known as the Santa Claus of Hearing. Now he’s being honored as member of the Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans.

The Horatio Alger award honors those who have defied adversity with hard work, courage and determination to achieve the American dream of wealth and success.

Austin, 66, developed the first in-the-ear hearing aid, licensed the technology and became the world’s largest provider of such hearing aids by 1973. Starkey Laboratories generates $420 million in annual sales and employs more than 3,700 people in 26 countries.

Through the Starkey Hearing Foundation, Austin goes on more than 30 mission trips a year to provide children with hearing aids.

Children are “the future of the world,” Austin said after receiving the award. “We truly live through what we give — we live on into the future through our gifts back into your community and to humanity.”

Liffey is a new recruit at Hearing Dogs For Deaf People.

Being a switched-on, tech-geek, forward-thinking kinda dog, she has decided to keep a blog to let us all know what life is like for a hearing dog. She talks about being rescued, settling into her new ‘kennels’, meeting new friends and families and continuing in her quest to become a fully fledged hearing dog.

It’s an entertaining read and gives a good insight into the training of a hearing dog.

Read Liffey’s blog

Study on hearing loss attributed to mobile phone use states the blindingly obvious

ExpressIndia.com have reported on a study conducted by the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER). The study concludes that, “People using mobile phones for more than four years and longer than 30 minutes a day are at risk of developing hearing loss particularly at higher speech frequencies. This hearing loss was more in the dominant ear (ear of use). Presence of fullness in the ears, ear warmth, strange noises in the ear are warning signals which should not be ignored“. The study took 18 months.

Warning people about dangers to their hearing is a good thing and hopefully these results have made a few people sit up and notice. But, seems to me, that the results were very obvious in the first place. A mobile phone, pressed onto someone’s ear for long periods, possibly turned up to drown out background noise, is almost certainly going to cause hearing damage over time.

I wonder, do the instructions that come with mobile phones state the maximum volume and warn about safe use?

The study at ExpressIndia.com