Thank you for your support. I will acknowledge the problem is partially my fault. I have always been the sort of person to voice my opinions and I probably come across a bit too strong sometimes. I would never make a good politician because I am programmed to call a spade a spade.
I do however stand by my statement that a lot of people struggle to find a good audio that does (properly) and does more than a simple tone test to program hearing aids. This forum is littered with people complaining about their audio not being able to help. A few anecdotes from people with good experiences does not convince me when studies have been done and it is reported that something like 40% or some ridiculously high percentage of people have bought a hearing aid which then sits in the drawer for most of the time. That is a shocking statistic.
Another point for people to consider is that I would imagine that most people have age related hearing loss - which generally follows a simple slope with loss of higher frequencies. I don’t know. The point is, my hearing loss is extremely rare and unusual with both ears being very different to each other. So, naturally I am an extremely challenging hearing loss to treat.
I will certainly update this topic once I have been to the next appointment. So, far I am very encouraged with my new audio.
I found that test extremely useful, because the audiologist was able to tell me that at this volume, my speech comprehension is like so and at that volume, my speech comprehension is at that percentage. To me, the test seems incredibly useful - although admittedly it doesn’t take into account how well you hear once you have hearing aids in and necessary frequencies boosted.
The word understanding test can also be used to see what sounds the patient is missing. The list of words have different consonant and vowel sounds. If the patient consistently misses certain sounds the audiologist can make adjustments to correct this. This might not be done with hearing aids but it is done with cochlear implants. This test was a big success for me with my implants improving my word understanding.
Yes! This is exactly what I want my new audio to test. I have long felt that the problem is that I am not hearing certain sounds which could be vowels, consonants, fricatives or whatever as well as I should be. But all my previous audios were unable to answer that question because all they do is that tone test! I think the new audio does this with her aided/unaided speech test that is coming up. I will make a point of asking her about this, because I agree - this will definitely help me.
I don’t have any facts to compare with the speech banana, but based on my own hearing loss, this is my thoughts on what the WRS does.
It does not rely on - “the computer says so”. Just because you boost frequencies for say 1khz and now you are supposed to be able to hear the letter “m” for example, does not make it so. Your brain might “hear” the sound, but may not understand it at a lower volume etc!
From my word speech test, the audio determined that I can hear maximum 90% at 85dBHL with my left ear. The speech banana I presume would based on the tone test say - I can hear most frequencies at say 70dB - so the audio programs that frequency to 70dB instead of 85dB based on the speech test?
I think the real value of the speech test is to use a non computer and independent verification of what the patient can actually hear with regards to speech, rather than relying on the computer saying that is what the patient should hear based on tone test. I personally feel that the biggest problem with too many audios is that they are too reliant on - the computer says so!
I have been for my second appointment. I am a bit tired and there is not much to report, so this will be brief.
Second Appointment
The appointment was for half an hour, so quite brief.
She upgraded the firmware of the hearing aids, removed wax from my right ear. The wax was not large and wouldn’t affect , but we both agreed that we wanted no possibility of any wax distorting the REM results. She also backed up the hearing aids to her account on Genie, so that is presumably all the programs as well as the global settings. She also discussed what would be best for my hearing configuration at the next appointment when she configured the hearing aids and did the REM.
The next appointment will be 90 minutes long and will include configuring my hearing aids with General, 2nd General and TV Streamer modes. In addition, she will be doing REM, I presume that she will also be doing all the other remaining tests such as aided/unaided speech tests etc.
I am not quite clear on the value of the second appointment because upgrading the firmware doesn’t take long and she already sent me a report on my hearing, so apart from the wax removal, it seems the second appointment is not really beneficial as there is a delay in getting the hearing aids setup. But perhaps she wanted to review the configuration from the previous audio.
Her opinion on the previous audio based on what she saw in Genie
According to her, she said that she cannot see any insitu having been done, which she said should have been done if he was not doing REM. I know that he made a lot of changes after giving me the hearing aids. Would these changes somehow have removed the insitu making it appear like it had not been done? I now realise, after chatting to Chatgpt, that what he did when he gave me both hearing aids is he must have run a feedback calibration test on both of them, because I did not have to respond my pressing the button etc.
Second, what she said she found very interesting was that the lower frequencies showing in Genie were a lot flatter than they should have been (for both ears) and that applied for all sound profiles - Vac+ and . This is just based on her hearing test and what she was expecting to see in Genie. I have to say that I find that very surprising and very interesting that there is a big difference for the low frequencies. I am thinking he may have globally adjusted the lower frequencies down for some reason and this applied to all sound profiles.
I had thought that my previous audio was good (compared to the high street chain), but I just can’t help feeling a loss of confidence in the previous audio if he really didn’t do the insitu - which he said he had done, because an insitu should not be optional if you are not doing REM. In addition, it now seems that the lower frequencies are flatter than they should be - which would explain why I still struggle to hear speech where people’s voice do not project - low energy voices (mainly women). I can’t explain why there is a difference in low frequencies between the two audios. That is interesting.
Conclusion
My next appointment is on the 9th March and this will be crunch time. Hearing configuration will be applied, REM done and whatever other tests she normally does. Then we will see whether I hear soft speech any better than before. I will update next time.
Can anyone, who is an audio or has familiarity with Genie2, advise whether we need to set the hearing aids to factory or whether a simple reset would wipe all the previous audiologists changes and modifications. I don’t care whether I have to do the pairing etc again. My concern with a simple reset is while it might wipe all his programs, so that she can apply her programs, does a simple reset all revert to default any global changes he may have made such as reducing/increasing soft, moderate and loud volumes, or adjusting the vent size for the hearing aids - because he claimed that Genie was showing the vent sizes as different initially. I just want to make sure that we wipe everything he could have changed and yes the factory reset will do that, but it will also mean that she has to re-apply the firmware upgrade again. Are we safe with a simple reset? Thank you
Does Genie or any of the other fitting software have an option to reset all settings to defaults? The software seems to operate as having new client settings override the hearing aid settings. There could be situations where resetting to defaults and then programming would be useful.
Yeah some have a default factory settings, or just from new client, but I can’t see how it would matter, as in no one actually uses a default value, everything is always fit by ones audogram.
But what’s the point? As in your trying to compare what exactly? I can’t say for sure what genie does, but you could look into Phonak target which does a factory reset.
OP asked about it and I have not noticed that setting in Genie. It seems reasonable to want to factory reset as way to be sure one is starting fresh in both prescription and options.
It seems reasonable to want to factory reset as way to be sure one is starting fresh in both prescription and options
Not really, any new fitting simply overwrites anything stored in the , one thing that factory reset is good for tho, is removing a pin lock or if something is corrupted, Phonak and ReSound offer it, I haven’t tried in Genie but I’ll take your word it’s not there.
Take Phonak as an example as there is a factory reset process. After reset, if one restores a fitting session, does the old battery data get added back? If not, should we be periodically resetting and restoring to optimize the battery longevity?
Hard reboot of the hearing aid is different than wiping all settings back to factory. Hard reboot does not alter any settings; it sometimes help clear up glitches in the software running on the hearing aid itself.
Has anyone tested this hard reboot twice method to factory reset?
I will just say to the audio to make sure that she actually wipes all his changes, not just the programs and mention about the different size vents. She must wipe previous audiologists settings all the time, so I am sure that she knows what she is doing.
I will just say to the audio to make sure that she actually wipes all his changes
Sorry, that’s just nonsense. As soon as she creates a new session and matches to , whatever she puts in the aids IS the programming. You can futz around with acoustic pre-requisites, but the reprogramming via/after REM just wipes this anyway. There’s no legacy aspect to this.
The only reason to do a factory reset (other than a battery issue) would be to test the aid against a shipping spec for output in a test box. Again this would be inferior to actually doing a live REM, as you’d only get a base-line gain spec unless you ran a pretty extensive Test-box/ set-up.
You misunderstand what I am saying. I have already said that I don’t have Genie2 and Noahlink, so obviously I don’t know how the programs work. I simply meant that I would be asking her as my new audiologist to ensure that nothing remains from the old audiologist when she configures my hearing aids.
If you say that this will happen when she creates a new session and matches to that this will remove everything the previous audio has done and replace with her programming - then that’s good. That’s exactly what I want to ensure that nothing remains of anything that the previous audio may have altered.
England, UK
Texas Hill Country
Wales, UK
