Hello, everyone. This is your host, Susan Rosin. My guest today is Dana Helmink. Dana is here to talk with us about hearing and hearing aids and how important all of that is, which I am a big supporter of. So welcome, Dana, and tell us a little bit both about yourself, maybe about how you ended up in this profession and also your product, and we'll go on from there. Yeah. Thanks, Susan. Thanks. I'm happy to be here. Passionate about talking about hearing loss. I'm Dana Helmink.
I am the Senior Director of audiological development for Widex, which is a hearing aid manufacturer. But actually, my background in hearing and hearing health care goes way back. I've been an audiologist for nearly 25 years. Oh, my goodness. And so starting in clinical practice.
I come from the Chicago area and started in clinical practice here and working with all ages of individuals, primarily adults, who were sometimes getting hearing loss, diagnosed for the first time, and looking for solutions for that 25 years ago. It's amazing how technology has advanced in that amount of I can't even... That'd be a whole separate podcast, just talking about the technological advancements.
I started off in clinical practice, but I, pretty early on in my career, became super interested in the technology behind the solutions that we were offering to individuals with hearing loss who at the time were my patients.
And so early in my career, I followed a path into the on the industry side of our profession and being involved in product management and product development and user experience, design and research, and then ultimately education and training, which is largely a part of my role today with Widex is to contribute to the educational efforts and the training that we provide to both our customers, so the hearing care professionals who who select our products for their
patients, as well as providing education to consumers themselves, the individuals who are selecting hearing aids, living with hearing loss, and choosing a solution for their hearing needs along with their hearing care provider. Today, largely, my role is educational, but you'll find, probably as we talk, that I love technology. I like to talk about That's good. I like that part. Yeah. For sure. I don't know, a question just came up out of curiosity.
Are you guys not not necessarily just you, but the whole hearing loss. Are you finding that people are losing their hearing earlier at a younger ages? Because it used to be '70s and '80s or whatever, '60s and '70s. Yeah. It's really interesting. I think there's a couple of things going on. There is a concern that hearing loss is present at younger ages than previously, potentially because of all of the personal... Okay, you're frozen. Uh-oh. To all of the- I lost you. Okay, go back.
It froze for about a minute. It was very strange. Oh, very strange. Okay, so you had asked me about hearing loss. I got the part to- Okay. Yeah. So I think there's an increasing concern that maybe hearing loss is emerging or or there's a greater risk of hearing loss at a younger age due to all the personal device use and maybe at volumes that are unsafe as teenagers and young adults.
But I think when we look at the adult population, it may not be that hearing loss is emerging earlier or present earlier, but that there's a greater awareness of hearing loss and that it isn't just something that happens in your 70s or your 80s. There is a high prevalence of hearing loss in a population as early as 45, 50, 55 years old. That's when we start to see mild hearing losses that emerge.
And in 25 years ago, if you had a mild hearing loss at that age, we may very well have done nothing for you and made no recommendation except monitor it and come back. But with the advancements in technology and the increasing options that exist for individuals to address early hearing loss, mild hearing loss, I believe there's a greater awareness and more action at a younger age. So sometimes we used to think of hearing loss or hearing aids as something only for the elderly.
We realize now that it is at any age. In aging, age is still the single greatest contributing factor to hearing loss. As we age, the risk for hearing loss goes up. That is for sure. Everything ages. But now we're not talking about as we get old. We're just saying as we age. Anybody who is And there's a big push right now for people at all ages to know what their hearing status is, and not leave this to be something that we look into only once we perceive ourselves as old or older.
There's a push towards having an awareness of your hearing in your 20s, in your 30s, in your 40s, because everybody's journey and path is a little different. And when hearing loss might emerge and become bothersome, there's no clear cutoff for that. And there's no, Oh, if you this, then this. It's very random. Yeah. There's things we We should all be thinking about for our general hearing health today, know your hearing status. So get a hearing test or a hearing screening.
Protect your hearing when you're in noise. Even one single experience of going to a concert that's too loud. So if your dream was to see the Rolling Stones in concert and you get those amazing tickets too close to the speaker, I mean, one traumatic hearing experience It's like a really loud concert could be damaging to your hearing.
And the repeated exposures that we get from things like mowing the lawn without hearing protection or other recreational activities where the noise where the noise level is very high, those can all just incrementally damage our hearing and create a greater risk for hearing loss.
So know your hearing status, use hearing protection when exposed to louder sounds, and mainly, don't wait to take care of your hearing health if you suspect hearing loss, because the earlier that you act, the better outcomes that people generally have in managing their hearing loss. So are you finding... I don't know whether you, the larger you, Are you finding that a lot more younger people are actually getting to the point of needing hearing aids, whatever. I do feel that.
And again, a little bit because, yes, I do feel that people are getting hearing aids at a younger age than in the past. And I think there's several things that contribute to One is just increasing, is a shift in the mindset. I mean, even as a hearing care professional myself, when I started in the profession nearly 25 years ago, we wouldn't have acted as aggressively for somebody with mild hearing loss. And two reasons.
One is that the technology we had at the time had its drawbacks, and it would be difficult for somebody with a mild hearing loss to maybe overcome some of the challenges of getting used to or accustomed to amplification. The advancement in technology, which I know we'll talk a little bit about what's new from Widex, that definitely falls into that category.
But I think what we see is that as the technology has advanced, some of those barriers to wearing hearing aids, to accepting that technology in your life and having it become part of your daily life, some of those barriers are going away. And so there's an openness, I think a greater success point in people wearing technology, hearing technology and hearing aids sooner in their life. And so audiologists are making the recommendations sooner because we see the success that's there.
So I think that's one thing is that a greater awareness that we can help individuals earlier with mild or hearing loss. I think the second thing that's shifted is all of the research that is emerging in the last few years, just within the last year, really a revolutionary study that out of Johns Hopkins, it's called the Achieve Study. So like the word achieve, anybody wants to look into that. I will. It's a really large scale, quite impressive study.
They have a thousand participants who've been recruited to do a long term study over the course of three years where they followed people who were put into two groups. They all started with untreated hearing loss, and then they were either fit with hearing aids or not. So the control group did not get hearing aids. And they investigate things around the relationship between hearing loss and cognitive decline, and specifically the untreated hearing loss and cognitive decline.
I think what's interesting, it's not my research to present, but I think what's really interesting about it is the finding that for individuals who did have a higher risk of dementia, that was something they found in some of their subgroups, so a higher risk of that cognitive decline, those who used hearing aids in the study had an almost 50% reduction in their subsequent cognitive decline measured three years later compared to those who didn't use hearing aids.
And so that study, really good quality studies like that, that are moving us beyond speculating that there's a relationship between untreated hearing loss and cognitive decline and actually showing that, yes, there is a relationship here. We cannot leave hearing loss untreated because there are effects on us beyond our communication abilities. It can be contributing to dementia, to cognitive decline.
And then also showing that when people do get hearing aids, it might impact positively progression for those who are at risk of cognitive decline. And so we've seen this It's research emerging. It's getting a lot of attention in various news media. I think it does have individuals who are thinking, I wonder if I have hearing loss or who know they have hearing loss but haven't acted yet, are thinking, maybe I shouldn't wait.
I think that that's really what's maybe driving, as you pointed out, this feeling that we're seeing hearing loss younger and that people are getting hearing aids younger. I think we are detecting hearing loss at a younger age, and that's great. I think we are making better recommendations to take action, and I think that's excellent.
And then I think on the receiving end, individuals who are become aware of their hearing loss are more motivated to act because it is a bit beyond just their communication capabilities, but maybe other health factors for them. And of course, I think everybody is motivated to say, How do I live my best life? It when I'm 70, 80, 90? I have a grandmother who made it almost to 100 years old, right? Oh my God, yeah. Living independently. So that's what we all want. My mom was 94. Yeah.
And that's what we all want, that quality life. And so I think hearing loss in our hearing status is only a part of that. But it may not be an insignificant part of how we live a quality life in the second half of our life. Yeah. Oh, no, exactly. I think it's also interesting because, like we were talking about earlier, the issue that I have with the bone isn't from going to a lot of rock concerts. No. And that's the other thing that people don't realize that there are other causes.
Absolutely. I think it's That's really interesting. I'm very excited to see recently a big push towards this idea that everybody should know what their hearing status is. Because you see in other parts of our lives, we're monitored throughout our lives for our vision status, with annual exams. Our hearts, whatever. We're monitored throughout our lives for various things related to heart health and cholesterol and all of these things.
Somehow, unfortunately, hearing loss and monitoring and knowing about our hearing has become a thing that only happened when you suspected a problem or when you were falling into this perceived category of elderly. And that's really unfortunate because as your experience is, it's not always related to just aging. It's not related to just noise exposure. There are many things that can contribute to hearing loss.
And the most important thing is that we offer appropriate solutions to individuals people's experiencing hearing loss and solutions that they can accept, and solutions that meet their needs. And that's something that at Widex, in our legacy of product development, has always been to look at what is the problem that needs to be solved, and then how do we do that? What solution can we bring that addresses a need that exists? And I think it's always our guiding principle on what we do as a company.
Widex has a legacy in this. We were founded in 1956 as a small Danish company. So So two businessmen, an engineer and sales and marketing genius, the top home in the Westerman families, they started the company in 1956, and their families are still the owners still owners of the company today.
And so we still operate as, despite being one of the largest hearing technology companies in the world today, we still really operate as this family business, driven by a sense of responsibility to our customers and to the people who wear our hearing aids.
And we've focused on changing, I think, revolutionizing sound quality and hearing aids over the many decades of our time as a company and product development, and continue with our newest product to focus on what are challenges that people have and how do we bring solutions that change their lives and change their experience and change their hearing journey. Yeah, absolutely. Just go off this way just a little bit. Do you mostly do this through your own representatives?
In terms of providing hearing health care? Yeah. We work through hearing care professionals. This is typically audiologist and licensed audiologist and licensed hearing aid dispensers who work around the world. But for me, we focus on just the US market here. So we work with independent hearing care providers who can work, who can choose from a range of different brands and products out there. And they work with their patients to make the best decision for them, dependent on their needs.
Individuals come with a variety of different needs in terms of what their hearing status is, what the nature of their hearing loss is, what's important to them in their daily lives We started to have solutions for all individuals with hearing loss, but we work with hearing care professionals who make that recommendation and then provide that-I lost you. Wait a minute. Wait, wait, wait. I can't hear you. That's strange. Yeah. Okay, now you're back.
Okay. It's weird because on my end, you're fine, but I'm not. Unfortunately, I can't tell when that happens. I don't know whether it's me. Sometimes Zoom just goes crazy. Yeah, it's hard to say. Luckily, I don't have any teenager in my house taking all the bandwidth right now, but I do have a husband in the house who also has the audacity to use the internet. I know. I reset the internet this morning. Maybe I shouldn't have done that. Where do you want me to pick up from?
Oh, I just missed the last sentence or so that you were talking about. Okay. So I think, which now I'm like, what were we talking about? We were talking about- So we were talking about independent. So Wideex works exclusively with independent hearing care providers. And we don't do anything direct to the hearing aid wearer themselves. Because we really believe in that professional service and care that is necessary.
The hearing care provider is a critical part of the journey and successful outcomes. Yeah, yeah. No, absolutely. I think the other thing that's interesting for me is that over the years, as electronics has become more and more important in everybody's lives, I use my hearing aid to make phone calls. And it's a lot better hearing quality than my Apple things or any of that stuff. And sometimes it drives me crazy because I forget to turn my phone off when I go to a concert or something, classical.
Well, the other thing is, too, that I forget to turn the Ringer on. Oh, when Yeah. Yeah. So it rings in my ear, which is fine. That's the idea. But then I forget. I've been trying to get myself into the habit of turning the whole thing off. Right. But I think what you're pointing out are some of the really important things that help people start that hearing journey and take and address their hearing loss because we are connected people. We're using technology.
The importance of having hearing aids with that Bluetooth connectivity, that streams, it just allows you to go about living your life and not thinking about your hearing loss all the time and not thinking about your hearing aids all the time.
And it's interesting that our conversation has taken us there because this guiding principle always for Widex in our technology is this goal to create a hearing aid that sounds so good that you forget you're wearing it and that it fits so seamlessly into your life that you don't have to think about it. So you put your hearing aids on, you live your life, and you don't spend a lot of time thinking about hearing loss and thinking about hearing aids, right?
It's part of your life, not something you have to give active thought to. And so it's really what we've focused on in our latest technology that we've introduced to our customers. Tell me about it. Yeah, we call this the Widex Smart-Rick. It's really an example of how smart design can provide measurable benefits and really strong outcomes for wearers. We've looked at three areas with this product.
One of them is its ability to help people to provide this exceptional focus when they're in a variety of situations. This is important. You need a hearing aid to help you achieve what you want. Most people seek a solution for their hearing challenges because of their experience. They're having difficulty hearing, most often in noisy environments. It's usually the first thing that's noticed, it's the first complaint. It is the most important problem to solve.
With our Widex Smart Wreck, it is a groundbreaking, really revolutionary physical design of the product that has allowed us to put the microphones of the hearing aid at a more optimized angle so that it's focusing on the communication partner that you have or the thing that you're trying to hear. If you think about microphones, if you see...
However, whatever your exposure to microphones in your daily life, one that is directed at the thing that you want to pick up sound from is going to be more effective. We really looked at how the physical design of a hearing aid can put the microphones at an optimized angle, a position, so that they provide better focus, better speech and understanding in noise.
We published in March in the Hearing Review, which is one of our trade journals in the hearing industry, that demonstrated that by optimizing that microphone angle, by getting the hearing aids closer to this horizontal angle, that there is a measurable improvement in signal to noise ratio. This is how we describe the way that how much louder you need the speech to be than the noise to understand the environment.
This contributes to a great greater speech understanding for wearers in a noisy environment. We've also done things to reduce the distraction of wind noise across hearing aid microphones. That can be something that people experience negatively, and to reduce the awareness of things like touch noise, when your hair touches a microphone, or when you put your glasses on and off, or when you rub your hand over here, wear a hat, all of those things.
It really goes to how we think about wanting people to be able to forget that they're wearing a hearing aid. Really good quality sound, able to focus on the speech or the signal that you're trying to understand and doing it without the distraction interactions of these other things that can come with hearing aid use.
And so creating a situation where, again, people can accept that hearing solution more easily and achieve what their goal was, better communication in a variety of situations without thinking about having hearing loss or wearing hearing aids. And I think parallel to that are things like rechargeability in hearing aids. It's amazing technology that many hearing aids are available rechargeable. So you can put them in a charger, charge them up. Yeah, exactly.
You don't have to change batteries and things like that. So that is amazing technology. But even rechargeability comes with its limitations. You have to think about when will you charge, bringing your charger with you when you go places. With this Widex Smart Wreck, this really revolutionary design of the divine has allowed us to get a very high capacity battery inside of a very small, sleek, modern-looking hearing aid.
We're able to deliver up to 37 hours of use on a single charge of that hearing aid. Much more than you need because most people sleep. But the beauty of it is it goes into a portable charger that itself has a battery in it and charges up the hearing aid. Now what we're able to offer as a solution where wearers can go over a week without having to plug in their charger.
So think of being able to go away for the weekend and just your hearing aids are on your ears, you grab your little portable charger and you You just go. And that tear free, that freedom from having to think about, When will I charge? Well, you'll get through the whole day. You'll never have to worry about that. And you'll put your hearing aids back in your charger at night while you're sleeping anyway.
And you could go a whole week where all you had to bring with you was your little charger that's in your pocket or your purse or somewhere. So again, these are things that I think help people make hearing, consistent daily hearing aid use, part of their life to put them on that journey towards a hearing solution and long term hearing care.
And the last thing, it's come up a little bit, even as we talked, you've talked about how you've asked about hearing loss coming on earlier or people using hearing aids earlier. And I think it's fair to say that one of the things we still work to overcome is a stigma that hearing aids are associated with old age, right? And this thing that we don't, any of us, want to be as elderly in this negative way, right? We're living our best lives at all ages, right? Yes, exactly.
So I think breaking this stigma around hearing aids sometimes comes from offering a hearing aid that doesn't look the way that we think hearing aids that our grandparents wore and things like that, breaking that association. It's unique design. It's very cosmetic. It sits on and behind the ear comfortably. It's slim, it's sleek, it's pretty invisible on most ears. But when you do see it, it has this really modern look to it, a lot more like consumer products than hearing aids.
There can be a benefit in that as well in allowing for getting people to say, to break that association with the hearing aids that their grandparents wore, and instead something modern. And so we really have looked at this idea of focus, to improve speech understanding and noise, convenience, so that people are free to just go live their lives and not think about batteries and recharging.
And then the esthetics of a device and how when you like the way something looks, you feel good about wearing it, using it for sure. Yeah. Oh, no, absolutely. So when you're talking about the 37 hours or whatever, the number is. 37 hours, yeah. Is that just for when it's just on and you're not? So like when I was talking about using the streaming- Yeah, even with streaming, we get up to 27 hours of use with streaming. Okay. Oh, that's good.
I like able to deliver without a doubt a full day of use, even for individuals who would consider themselves to be heavy streamers, lots of phone calls, maybe they're streaming Netflix. When you're binge watching a series or have your favorite podcast that you like to listen to, you can certainly, again, have that full day of use without concern. Oh, no, that's great. Sorry, the clouds have covered the sun, and all of a sudden I'm getting like, Okay, let's turn a light on here.
Isn't that normal? Yeah, it's amazing. How much better the technology has been getting, how fast. I think all of a sudden, the last couple of years, it just hit a speed bump. No, wrong way. That the speed bump went away. Yeah. I think we've accelerated. I think we're really accelerating our technology. And with Widex, SmartRic, this is an example of thinking differently.
It's something as a company we've always done is to say that maybe the physical design of hearing aids until now might have been limiting some of the potential that they could offer, potential benefits they could offer in noise. If we think differently, if we just simply say we don't have to do what we've always done, we can do it in a different way, can we create a benefit? In this case, we found that we could and we have. I think that's super important.
Even as recently as, I think it was 2020, was the last, there's a market track, a survey done periodically on people who are wearing hearing aids, people who who have not wearing hearing... Who have tried hearing aids and are not wearing them, to try to understand what drives those decisions. So people who wear their hearing aids, what's important to them, how satisfied are they? And for people who are not wearing hearing aids, tried them and maybe said, no, thank you.
Yeah, I have a brother like that. What drove that decision? Yeah. Yeah. And so it's really interesting to look at that. And I think one of the things that emerge there is that for people who have chosen not, who have hearing loss and have tried hearing aids and did not stick with it, returned them or- Or didn't even do it to start with. Yeah, exactly. That sometimes what it is, is it's that their satisfaction with how the hearing aid they tried addressed their hearing and noise.
If that's your biggest complaint, you really need your hearing aid to deliver on that for you and then to also meet all of your other needs. It looks good, it It feels good. It streams from my phone. It does all of the things that I wanted to do. But it has to, first and foremost, meet my primary need, which is that I hear better when I'm in noisy situations. I think people have an assumption that a hearing aid sounds good to them in all of the environments, that the sound quality is good.
For Widex, this is something that we focus on. Sound quality should be there for them. They should experience the best sounding hearing aid, the best sound quality that is possible. That's part of our DNA. Then looking at if individuals who are choosing not to wear hearing aids are saying that they made that decision because their hearing aid didn't help them enough in noise, why is that? Why with all of the advanced technology, have we not conquered that?
Sometimes it means we have to think a little bit outside the box and say, maybe there's something more that we could be doing. I'm proud to be part of a company that says, Where could we do something differently? Because what we've been doing as an industry, not just as a company at Widex, but as an industry, maybe isn't hitting the mark for every wearer, because there are people who have tried and said, No, I'll wait.
We know from some of this recent evidence on untreated hearing loss and that link to cognitive decline, we should not wait. We need to create solutions that meet the needs of wearers in a way that helps them come to that decision. I won't wait. I will act now because this helps me. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Particularly because the kind I wear is the one where the thing goes up on the top and behind my ear, and then That is the most common.
That is the most common. That goes on the wire and goes in. Yeah, absolutely. That's what we call a RIC, receiver in the canal device or receiver in the ear device. But it is the most common style of hearing aid today because of all of the advantages it offers in the rechargeability and the Bluetooth connectivity and all of the control that you can have for it and app integration.
And so And it just meets the needs of a lot of different wearers and is quite cosmetic with those thin wires being all that's visible on many ears. Yeah, and they're clear. Exactly. They're clear. That's the other thing. Yeah. I know. I noticed that what I end up having to do is pushing the top down back into my... Not here, but on the top. It tends to pop up a little bit. It's not that big a deal. It's interesting. It's not that big a deal.
If there's anything that I've learned in all of my years and all of the different things I've worked on is the diversity and variety in ear anatomy and shape.
Again, I think thinking about the fact that by offering a style of device with our Widex SmartRic that is quite different, a pretty ground-breaking L-shaped that there's individuals who very likely will find that this is the most comfortable feel that they've had on their ear because that shape better matches their ear anatomy And so, again, having these solutions that hearing care professionals can recommend to their patients in a
variety of solutions that target different needs, different ears, different preferences, is super important overall in our industry. Oh, yeah. No, absolutely. That's the one thing you have your industry in particular, right? Yes. People are so fussy about it, which is fine because we know, and I know, that if it's not comfortable, you don't wear it. Yeah. And honestly, hearing is complex. Hearing is extremely complex. The auditory system is complex. Our needs vary quite a bit.
Our preferences vary quite a bit. At Widex, we're really happy and proud to be part of offering these unique solutions to individuals and offering something that I think, can meet the needs of many wearers in achieving their goals for better hearing, better understanding of speech in a variety of environments, and everything from there to style, recharge Chargeability, Bluetooth streaming. What's important to an individual needs to be part of the solutions that
are offered to them for sure. Yeah. Oh, no, exactly. I always think it's funny that sometimes I'll be sitting somewhere somewhere. And all of a sudden, like I said, the phone will ring or whatever, and it'll start going off of my ear. And I'm with my husband or somebody else, and I'm like, Oh, shit. And I start fumbling with things. And they're like, What's going on? Oh, the damn phone's ringing in my ear. And nobody else knows. So you're like, Oh. I know. I know exactly.
And unfortunately, I haven't been able to figure out how to stop it on the hearing aid. I'm sure one of the buttons, I'm sure if I do something, it'll just connect. But then I don't know if it just cuts them off. The beauty of technology is having the ability to do all of these things. And sometimes the challenge of technology is having the ability to do all of these things. Exactly. I just treat it like a toy. It's a good toy, but still. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, it's funny.
Well, you certainly, I think, have this passion for hearing and hearing loss and addressing it from your own experience, right? It's great for you to be able to share that awareness and feeling with your viewers and followers. I think every time that we're talking about hearing loss publicly and in the media is is a positive thing so that we increase that awareness that there is something we can do.
There are solutions, and they're really good ones today, that the technology has just advanced dramatically, certainly from 25 years ago when I started, but from three years ago. It's amazing. Every time I turn around, I'm amazed by how we're advancing in this industry. Yes, absolutely. I think the other message as well, which you've been talking about throughout this whole time, is that hearing loss, particularly as you get older, can really be life-threatening.
Because people start to, and my mother did this, she started to not deal with people. She just became like a hermit thing. It's amazing, and it doesn't take very long. No. I think it is true. We don't fully understand all of the mechanisms for why hearing loss contributes to some of these... Might be associated with this risk in cognitive decline, but exactly what you point out, there's several theories. One of them is that hearing loss contributes to social isolation.
Social isolation definitely is associated with a cognitive decline. They also talk about the fact that maybe a lack of stimulation in the language areas of the brain when you're not getting the auditory signal you can get, maybe that also contributes to an atrophy of important parts of the brain due to lack of stimulation. Then lastly, they talk a lot about the effort.
When you're living with hearing loss, now you're isolating, and maybe also when you are communicating, there's this effort in this communication that they think could take away... Maybe your brain has just so much resource available, and when you have to put more effort into hearing, is it taking away from other parts of the brain?
I I don't have the answers to it, but I think the amount of good quality research in these studies and even things involving MRIs and brain scans and looking at what's happening related to hearing loss, untreated hearing loss and using hearing aids and treating hearing loss. I think it's fascinating. But what it all seems to point to is don't ignore the early signs of hearing loss. That's right.
And then I say to that, be aware that there are amazing solutions out there that I think can address the needs of all individuals. I strongly recommend that everybody think about seeing a hearing care professional within their community. Just get a baseline. Yeah. Just get a baseline. For help with that, of course, individuals, if you go to widex. Com, we have a find a professional website. And again, we work with independent audiologist, but that's one resource that you have.
Find a professional, know what your hearing status is, and see if you need to take a step further. We even have an online screening tool that you can engage in. It's just an online screening tool. It's not the same as a hearing test. And I love a good hearing test to really know. But a good online screening Training tool can help you know if you should take that next step. You better go get a little more. Exactly. For sure. It used to be 10, 15 years ago, even.
That you had to go to a hearing aid specialist, somebody who just did that. Now they're in stores, they're in... I mean, Costco has- I think access to care has increased It's increased significantly. Take advantage of it. Yeah, I think access to care has increased significantly. More and more people have benefits on their insurance as well, either for some of that screening or testing or hearing aids themselves. Look at what your options are there.
I always recommend just look at an independent practitioner who can offer you a range of products should there be a recommendation so that you're not locked in to just one choice so that you are offered lots of choice in your solution. And then beyond that, take action, right? Much better than doing nothing for sure. Yes, exactly. Exactly. So I think that's a great place to wrap up, which is go get your hearing checked if you haven't had it done. Absolutely. Absolutely.
Especially if you're over 50. Absolutely. Do it now. Yes. Because there's so many... I'm just going to add this. There are so many places that will screen you for nothing. Yes. And screening test is a great starting point. It's going to give you that pass/fail. That's right. Then you can decide what you want to do. Exactly. But you don't have to spend any money. It just takes an hour. Right. So just take that first step like anything in life, right? Bingo. Take that first step.
Exactly. Okay. Well, thank you. As you can tell, this is a subject that is close to my heart. As mine. So it's been a pleasure to talk to you. Yeah. No, I appreciate you coming on. And I'm going to end by what I usually say, which is that neither of us are doctors, and this is not medical advice. And I say that even when I have doctors on, but it's still not medical advice. Exactly. Not me, at least. I will look forward to talking to everybody next week.