Tech Byte: Hearing Loss Tech
We are in the middle of May which is known as National speech, language and hearing month. So today on Tech Byte, I have a very special episode for you and for those with hearing loss. I’m Patrick Moates. Welcome to this week’s Tech Byte.
In the studio today we have my friend Debbie rice who is an American Sign Language interpreter as well as Dr Tiffany Ahlberg from Ahlberg Audiology this Tech Byte will be close captioned for the hearing impaired. Dr. Ahlberg you have brought some new tech with us today and I guess it’s only new to me it’s not new to you because this is what you do so let’s talk about what you’ve brought and how this impacts the life lives of our viewers at home.
Dr. Ahlberg :“sure so um there are so many different techy things when it comes to ideology I feel like my whole job revolves around Tech stuff and so it doesn’t matter if it’s hearing devices like we fit for people with hearing losses or if it is something like a cochlear implant which is for very severe hearing losses and people with impaired word understanding but they both involve a lot of technology. So this is cochlear implant is a piece that is surgically implanted Under the Skin by a surgeon, usually is an ENT or a neurotologist and then once the surgery is completed there is a piece a headpiece that is worn which looks very much like a hearing aid and it is able to be programmed for the person’s hearing loss so it is like a traditional hearing aid almost except it’s using a different technology to get that sound into the inner ear. “
Okay and the last thing you brought were hearing aids, which obviously for speech language hearing awareness month everybody knows what hearing aids are. I didn’t know all the things that these could do so we will just let you talk about the technology that has evolved in hearing aids and go from there.
Dr. Ahlberg: “so this is one of the more common types of devices it has the piece that fits behind the ear and then it has a wire that goes in the ear and so it will fit a very broad range of hearing losses so it can be um programmed for many different people and types of hearing losses but um they come in multiple colors so I brought some of the colors that are available but the circuit sits behind the ear and because of that has a Bluetooth chip that so it’s large enough most of them are rechargeable have are chargeable battery so you don’t have to use batteries anymore if you don’t want to and they have Bluetooth technology that can connect to cellphones and the cell phone you can answer you can stream music you can talk to people much like um you know the headphones that kids are wearing nowadays and uh going around listening to things and talking to people and you’re like are you talking to me and they’re like h no I’m listening to something else or um but this is um very similar technology to that so it’s all integrated in this so it’s like wireless earbuds.”
I could sync it to my TV if I’m at home I can sync it to my phone if I’m in the car?
Dr. Ahlberg: Yeah the TV does require a special adapter but yes it can be done.
Brought to you locally by Rogers Technology Solutions.
