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BrainHQ exercise

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Has anyone used this?

I have to do BrainHQ exercises for a clinical trial. On the Fine Tuning portion, I am spectacularly flunking it. Just did one where is “Ga” vs “Da” with a female/high voice. I supposedly don’t have any issues with high frequencies or any comprehension issues but they all sound like “Ga” to me. I do have cognitive issues but not one where I’d have a 100% failure rate…

The same “Ga” vs “Da” with a male/low voice I did better until it got fast/short duration.

Is my ear messed up? My brain? The app? :sob:

I get BrainHQ for free as part of my Medicare advantage plan. I have used BrainHQ and struggle with the exercises that require me to hear. Regardless, I think it will help with cognitive decline. I’m not sure if it will help to understand speech better at this point in time.

So I have to ask: what is the audio output going to your ears? Does it stream through your aids? Is it a “speakerphone” or just coming out of your laptop’s speaker? Do you wear headphones over your aids?

I ask cuz the audio FORM makes a humongous difference! I’ll never forget my word comprehension test at the audi’s a couple years ago: the gal was wearing a face mask (it was tail-end of COVID) and she had a head-mic on. I noticed that the mic she was speaking in kept bobbing up and down sorta near her mouth - that was muffled behind her face mask. Naturally, since I’m in the booth, there’s no direct streaming to my aids - the sound came through crappy headsets.

Well. Maybe cut yourself some slack. If I’m streaming audio via on my phone, I’d be getting probably 95% of what’s said. That’s the BEST form of audio for my needs.

The clinical trial I’m in is for Long Covid; this portion is for brain fog. The audio portions of the app makes my brain die much faster but I don’t believe I’m doing too bad on the other audio ones considering, just the Fine Tuning.

They sent an iPad and yes, the audio/speaker on it is poor. I’m not expecting to be great but not able to recognize the difference even at the slowest seems a bit off and I have one supposedly perfectly good ear too. Strangely, holding the speaker up to my good ear seems to make it worse; better in this situation is only that I can tell there’s two slightly different sounds but I can’t figure out which is which.

PianoJoy, I’m sorry to hear you are dealing with long covid.

As for holding the iPad up to your good ear and hearing worse, that’s not too surprising. When sound comes in through both ears, the brain can more easily process it.

I’d like to emphasize what Bluejay said. The quality of sound that reaches your ear makes a big difference in how well you understand, and your brain doesn’t have to work as hard to process the sound. I can usually hear OK on phone calls using speakerphone or even just holding the phone up to one ear, as long as there is no background noise. But when I pipe the sound through my bluetooth hearing aids, it feels much better and easier. If you life includes a lot of phone calls, zoom meetings, etc., I encourage you to use decent headphones. I think it would reduce your brain fatigue.

In reply to @PianoJoy

Hi @PianoJoy, I have ME/CFS which is very similar to long covid in many respects. I would urge you to be cautious of “pushing” yourself to do well on cognitive tasks as it can be just as exhausting as physical activity and can lead to flare ups and worsening symptoms. The best thing you can do to make some progress in your recovery is to listen to your body. If the brain fog gets worse then you need to rest.

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