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Phonak p90R's were awful in the hospital

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My apologies. I don’t know where to post this.

My Phonak Auto Paradise p90R’s are set in Auto and fully charged.

A few days ago I was in the hospital for a day and a half. I couldn’t hear! Talking about lying down, toes towards the docs and nurses. Every time they talked I asked them to repeat themselves. It was an awful experience.

Suggestions greatly appreciated.

DaveL
Toronto

12 people in this conversation21 min readJump to latest

Acoustics in hospitals are not that great to start off with. Did you ask the staff to speak up. Did you explain to them that they need to face you when they’re speaking. Were they wearing masks. I never notice an increase in my inability to communicate in a hospital. It pretty much stinks everywhere.At the same time hospital staff performs the same procedures over and over and may just be set in their ways. Meaning they’re doing their job and communicating with the patient as needed and not deviating from their routine. I’ve gotten hot and cold responses when explaining my loss. Nothing hostile but some react like you’re talking to a wall. I usually bring someone with me to make sure nothing is misinterpreted. I don’t need the added stress of miscommunication.

I would think that hospital acoustics vary from building to building and even department to department.
Just read about the hearing dangers to the staff in orthopedic surgery. The next door neighbor, who assists in surgery confirms this and she had been an audiologist.

Maybe a remote mic for hospital trips would be helpful. If you were really down and out, you might need someone to accompany you to manage its use. The doctors and their assistants could pass it around. If you had a prolonged stay, the floor nurses might learn to manage its use for you, help you charge it, and change batteries(?). As @MDB is a male nurse, he might have some experience with folks in the hospital and possible remedies.

Been about 25 years since I worked in the hospital. If I remember, our typical “solution” was to hang a “Hard of Hearing” sign at the bedside to encourage people to speak up. My impression when my Mom was in the hospital was that they’d really rather not deal with equipment unless absolutely necessary. When i offered to bring in Mom’s hearing aids, the response was “No, we’re doing fine communicating with her.” Regarding OP’s question: Basically need to tell people that you can’t hear them and that you need them to come closer to you for you to hear.

In reply to @hass5744

I told them I was hard of hearing, wearing hearing aids and couldn’t hear. They spoke facing me, all of us wearing masks. It was worse than my experience in the office. Much worse. Yes, I had an interpreter.

MASKS. You just ID’d the prob. Even tho the acoustics are awful, there’s not much you can do if the hospital protocol is to wear a MASK.

On top of the hard surfaces, I’ve found that most exam offices and hospital rooms have equipment that buzzes, hums or even roars. When I get my annual mamogram, the technician stands off in a corner, back turned to me so she can look at her screen and something in there is ROARING as they take the digital image.

Not all medical facilities use see-thru face masks (like my old audi’s clinic would use). And even then, voices are distorted when the sound waves are blocked. In a real pinch, I’d have a doctor use a cell phone to call me on my cell phone - yes, right in the room. That way, they’d be streaming directly into my aids and I’d have a much better chance of hearing every single word.

I have found that when the other party is wearing masks then it’s a lost cause. This is a problem that has been addressed time and again. And if the interpreter is wearing a mask than that defeats the purpose. Fortunately it appears that mask requirements are fading away. Also people seem to be more aware of the fact that a mask tends to inhibit a person with a loss from understanding the conversation. Next time explain that the mask all but destroys your ability to understand. Most of my doctors understand that. If nothing else your interpreter should be allowed to remove their mask. If not, tell the hospital staff they need to write things down.

So sorry to hear about your experience.
This may or may not work, but I’m going to suggest it anyways.
If your P90R has extra program room, you could add a “mask” program, where it bumps up the speech frequency. The 65db range.

Capture

My friend uses the Phonak Mask Program and it works really well for him.

In reply to @drunkun_munky26

@drunkun_munky26 said:

If your P90R has extra program room, you could add a “mask” program, where it bumps up the speech frequency. The 65db range.

HEY I LIKE THAT IDEA! Isn’t that what “Speech in Loud Noise” should be doing for Phonak users? I have had issues with Noise Management, and will bring this up with my audi when I see her next week. This is what I’m daydreaming about: boosting the (mostly) human speech frequency. If that magic frequency is 65dB, then LET’S DO IT! :

In reply to @hass5744

@hass5744 said:

Are you saying it increases the volume in the speech frequency. Which increases all sounds within that frequency. I’m just curious.

That is precisely what I’ve always wondered about, too. And if there aren’t a LOT of other sounds in the same band as human speech, I’d want my aids to have that magic 65dB band boosted. I’m thinking audis would know what the human speech frequency band is … like there’s that excellent chart shared here with the “speech banana” in it:

Hearing Loss chart

What if it was possible to boost the 500Hz to 2K Hz between 40dB and 60dB? Wouldn’t that pretty much help one to hear SPEECH in various environments? I hope an audi chimes in here …

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