I’m sitting down with a gentleman named Tom Ferber to discuss his experience as a patient of Dr. Jessee and one of our first Starkey Wi Series fittings.  Follow along in the coming weeks where we discuss his journey with Good Sound Audiology.

One month follow up.  Tom has been wearing his new hearing aid for the last month.

GSA: Have you been able to get your Surflink box to connect to your TV and how is the sound?

Tom: It took us a little more time and effort than just “connecting it to our TV”, as when we had our house built, we had a Home Theater System (the 7 speakers and all wiring) installed as an option. After moving in and getting settled, we contracted for the construction of a Media Center, which placed all of the various audio/video devices in a consolidated area out-of-sight and provided a nicely backlit display area behind and around our TV. We tried many things to get Surflink to work, to no avail. The final connection that worked was almost too simple. The Surflink streams straight from the audio output of our DirecTV receiver box with the RCA cable that is supplied with the Surflink.

GSA: How are you doing and are you happy with your hearing aid?

Tom: Overall things are going well. It appears that I will be a learning mode for a while as I reeducate myself to ‘listen’. . . . something that seems to have atrophied with the time spent with my hearing loss being unassisted. I am now active as a member of my local HOA Board of Directors, and I need to be able to clearly understand what is being discussed at our monthly meetings. It feels good to be part of what is going on around me once again. I doubt I have the words to clearly express just how happy I am with my hearing aid.

GSA: What were your expectations and how well did we meet them?

Tom: As much as I dislike making your job sound easy (which I know it is NOT), my expectations were easy for you to surpass. I came to GSA in the mindset of what I knew about hearing assists from 25 years ago, and thought that I knew the severity of my hearing loss meant that not much could be done. Besides having hearing loss, I also have a genetic inheritance of early hearing loss in one ear, so I am now ‘monaural’. Dr. Jessee explained my audiology results clearly, and made me aware that even though what hearing capability that I do have is basically only in one ear, that too would diminish further if nothing was done to save it. Needless to say, that got my attention. We talked about the Starkey Wi system, and when I tried it in the office I was amazed! This was the technology I had always hoped for. Following the demonstration, I quite honestly forgot the device was even in my ear canal.

GSA: What would you say to a friend who was thinking of investing in the Wi but wasn’t sure?

Tom: I need to be careful not to make this sound too much like an orchestrated commercial, but I would (and have) told a few friends about the Wi system, and have offered to let them hear the clarity and improvement to their hearing through my hearing aid if that is what they need to give them a push. Should that not be to their liking, I am certainly going to recommend them to make an appointment at GSA and “hear for themselves”. Hopefully they too can be as amazed and satisfied as I am.

We’ll post again with my conversation with Mr. Ferber at his 6 month follow up appointment.  If you have any questions for Mr. Ferber, ask away.  We’ll make sure he answers them.  Stay tuned.  If you’d like to learn more about the Wi series, you can find it at www.goodsoundaudiology.com/wi-series

In this issue: Dr. Jessee highlights the Wi Series, hearing aid dryers and office news.

Download Spring 2011 Newsletter

Social bluffing is pretending to hear or understand something that is being said and behaving in a way that shows you understand, even when you have little or no clue as to what is being said.

Living successfully with hearing loss depends on good communication.  And communicating effectively does not usually include bluffing, or does it? Bluffing is oftentimes a necessary coping strategy for those living with hearing loss as it is for people with normal hearing.  I’ve read numerous articles and blogs on the topic of bluffing and how detrimental it can be for those dealing with hearing loss.  But I’d like to argue that bluffing is sometimes a necessary tool in your arsenal of strategies used to communicate effectively.  In addition to speech reading, positioning yourself in front of the speaker, and advocating for your hearing needs, bluffing can be helpful as long as it isn’t the only tool you rely on.  Bluffing continuously and lacking the assertiveness to explain your need for slower, clearer speech or for someone to repeat himself isn’t all that helpful if it causes you to miss out on the conversation, and missing out too often leads to social isolation.  Bluffing because we lack the skills necessary to communicate effectively is never a good idea.  However, we all bluff occasionally to appear socially normal and to avoid interrupting others and asking them to repeat themselves.  The key here is not to rely on bluffing as the only means of communicating with others.

For help, Kathy Allen from Hands & Voices has come up with some great Communication Strategies.  I’ve listed them here as well as included the link for your review.  http://www.handsandvoices.org/articles/SocEmot/V9-4_comStrategies.htm

1.      Replace non-specific strategies, such as “Excuse me, What did you say? Pardon? And Huh? with specific strategies:

• Please repeat more slowly
• What is the topic we are discussing

2.      Experiment with new strategies:

• Can you say that another way?
• Can you write down that word?
• Can you spell that slowly?
• I heard you say “——-“, but I did not understand the rest
• Does that begin with a “b” as in baseball?

3.      Manage your environment by saying:

• Let’s move away from the music
• I’ll need to switch seat so the window is behind me
• I need the lights turned up more
• I need to move closer to the speaker

4.      Explain your needs:

• I can understand/hear you/lipread better if you….
• I do much better if you speak slower.
• It is difficult for me to lipread/speechread when your hand covers your mouth

It’s much better to be upfront about your hearing loss and tell people what they need to do in order to communicate with you.  But when all else fails, using a bluffing technique now and then might also be helpful in getting you through some potentially awkward situations.  Just don’t do it too often.

I’m sitting down with a gentleman named Tom Ferber to discuss his experience as a patient of Dr. Jessee and one of our first Starkey Wi Series fittings.  Follow along in the coming weeks where we discuss his journey with Good Sound Audiology.

First week follow up.  Tom has been wearing his new hearing aid and increasing his wearing time daily.

GSA:      How has your week been with your new hearing aid?

Tom:      It’s been great, although more difficult than I thought getting used to all the new sounds.  Simple things like hearing my keys jingle from my pocket is a new sound to me.  I didn’t realize how noisy the world could be.  My wife and I were at Target and the PA system came on and it was incredibly loud and annoying….things I didn’t even realize that could be loud are.  The hearing aids are really comfortable and I’m not having any problems wearing them.  My wife and I had friends over the other night and I used that as my 6 hr day [on the wearing schedule] and I was great following along with the conversation and not feeling as quiet as I had been before when it was hard to hear everything that was going on.  It’s been great and my wife seems pleased.

GSA:      How has the SurfLink box worked out and the streaming from your TV?

Tom:      I’m still having problems trying to connect my SurfLink box to my entertainment center.  I keep trying different cables, but so far it hasn’t been easy because of my setup.  I’m going to try again this afternoon and see if I can’t get it to work.  I’m looking forward to hearing the TV again clearly.

We’ll post again with my conversation with Mr. Ferber’s at his two week follow up appointment.   Stay tuned.  If you’d like to learn more about the Wi series, you can find it at www.goodsoundaudiology.com/wi-series