By Brian Taylor, AuD, Signia Hearing Aids
People with hearing loss are feeling more comfortable wearing hearing aids – and speaking in loud and noisy environments – thanks to advancements in modern design.
Pretending the stigma around hearing loss doesn’t exist won’t make it go away. One prevailing stigma is the idea that hearing aids signify old age – which deters people from addressing their hearing loss in a society that values youth.
But many health issues we consider as part of aging, such as hearing decline, memory loss, and more can actually be influenced by age stigma itself, as argued in Yale professor Becca Levy, PhD’s book Breaking the Age Code. And, as suggested by a 2020 study, when people internalize these negative perceptions of aging, it can cause unhealthy outcomes like social isolation, cognitive decline, depression, and harmful behaviors like excessive smoking and drinking.
But there’s a positive aspect of this study as well: researchers found that when older folks challenge aging stereotypes, they are less likely to experience mental health challenges like anxiety. This makes overcoming the stigma of hearing loss all the more important; properly addressing it can help us maintain good health and age gracefully.
Fortunately, modern hearing aid designs are making it easier to do so by blending aesthetics with functionality. They look sleeker than ever before, and they address historic issues that hearing aid wearers have previously encountered, further eliminating a barrier to entry.
The Other Stigma: A Bad Hearing Aid Experience
Historically, those who have pushed past the stigma of hearing loss to wear hearing aids have had one major complaint about their experience: it’s still difficult to converse in noisy environments. Hearing loss is often most challenging at parties, meetings, bars and restaurants, and beyond – and some people have found that when they do wear hearing aids, sounds are amplified, but their ability to distinguish those sounds amidst the noise is the same.
Throughout the years, hearing aids have come a long way in enhancing one-to-one interaction by better processing sound from in front of a wearer while dampening ambient noise from other directions. But they haven’t, until recently, improved hearing in group conversations.
Trouble hearing in noisy environments causes people to either withdraw from social situations or opt out of wearing their hearing aids completely. This withdrawal from social settings can be unhealthy since conversations with friends, family, and colleagues have been shown to encourage healthy aging.
New Technology Empowers Healthy Hearing
Healthy hearing offers a wealth of benefits while aging, and that can only be made possible by making it easier to hear in noisy environments.
This has been Signia’s mission for years, which is why its engineers have developed a technology called split processing that allows hearing aids to divide a soundscape into two channels — a focus channel and a background channel — then process each separately. As a result, hearing aid wearers experience better speech clarity despite the surrounding noise.
The newest Signia Integrated Xperience (IX) hearing aid platform includes a RealTime Conversation Enhancement feature that represents the latest evolution in split processing technology by further improving the group conversation experience. It does so by analyzing the soundscape, sensing speech from different directions, and automatically separating voices into several distinct channels for processing.
Integrated Xperience knows to add gain for active speakers while diminishing the background channel, adapting to both the conversation and the environment. It can also analyze nearly 200,000 data points per second and adjust as people enter or leave the conversation.
This technology creates a better hearing aid experience, keeping people fully engaged and therefore more likely to continue engaging socially.
Advancements in Technology Lead to Positive Experiences
Integrated Xperience with RealTime Conversation Enhancement has already been shown to deliver a better hearing experience in early studies. When presented with hearing aids that include the platform, 95 percent of participants experienced better speech-in-noise performance. And in describing the real-world benefits of this performance, more than 80 percent said they felt engaged, maintained confidence and were better able to contribute in conversation.[1]
This new technology is now available to improve the hearing aid experience and help eliminate the stigma of addressing hearing loss. People can and should address it to fuel the social engagement that breeds better health and empowers healthy aging.
About the Author: Brian Taylor
Brian Taylor is a Doctor of Audiology and Senior Director of Audiology for Signia. He is also the editor of Audiology Practices, a quarterly journal of the Academy of Doctors of Audiology, editor-at-large for Hearing Health and Technology Matters and adjunct instructor at the University of Wisconsin. Dr. Taylor has authored several peer reviewed articles and textbooks and is a highly sought out lecturer. Brian has nearly 30 years of experience as both a clinician, business manager and university instructor.
[1] Jensen et al. (2024). Real-world assessment of Signia Integrated Xperience with RealTime Conversation Enhancement. Signia White Paper