You're listening to the Weekend Collective podcast from News Talks EDB and I.
Heard him seeing nothing's ever promised tomorrow the day when a shot like timmisa hard away. So this is in the name of love. Like Bribers say before you asked me to go get a job today, can I at least get a raised on a menu the wage? And I know the government and Minister Age, so guess we just pray like the Minister c I Bob throwing some hot cars and things we see on the screen.
And welcome back to the Weekend Collective. I'm Tim Beverage and it's now time we want your cause. By the way, I eight one hundred and eighty ten eighty text nine and it's time for the Health Hub and joining us, we're going to talk about hearing. And she is Leslie Smith, ahead of audiology at Tritton Hearing and Leslie, good afternoon, Good afternoon. Just get you to just fold your microphone down a bit and just come a bit close to it as a chatting that's great. How are you?
Yeah? Good?
Thanks? How are you?
Oh? Pretty good? Now hearing wise, I have a chat of it, but now we want your calls on hearing any of the questions you've got about whether you're concerned about hearing loss, or whether you are wondering whether you need a hearing aid or someone else, or you want information about what's the best way to prevent hearing loss. But also if you are thinking you're going to need a hearing aid, what's sort of what you would expect at a typical a point where were basically everything about
hearing and hearing loss. And I think I actually think the first way to start, I'm quite hot. I'm hot at the moment on this topic. Fairly only because sometimes when I come into the studio Leslie and I plug in my headphones and they I can tell a person who's just used them. I actually do say, gosh, I think someone's got some hearing loss because they're quite loud.
But it's quite an insidious thing, isn't it that you don't realize the changes that are going on in your hearing because your brain is constantly adapting.
Yeah, yeah, right, you're right. It's a bit of a chicky thing because noise damage is not just how loud it is, it's how long you're exposed. And so it could be that the volumes started off at a comfortable level for those people, but then over the hours they've slowly crept up the volume just to try to hear
over the background noise. Perhaps so, and it sneaks up on you because you know they might not have noticed it in a quiet place, but when they go to background noise or restaurants or cafes that you know, you might find you if it's someone in your family, you might find that they're just watching a little bit more, or they're laughing a little bit slower to the jokes, or.
Being a wallflower, because the brain does have quite an amazing ability to compensate. I guess you start looking for lip movement just to help confirm what you think you're hearing exactly.
You start watching a little bit more, and you have your eyes and I guess you're the front part of your brain trying to figure out patterns and to fill in the gaps. So you end up working a bit harder. So at the end of the day you've deciphered the message the whole day long, so you might just be a little bit more tired.
One of the biggest dangers to or I don't know, want to use dramatic language because then the wood that came into my mouth was into my brain. Was hearing threats. What are the biggest threats to people's hearing?
The first signs?
I know, what are the causes? You know that the major causes that the most troublesome causes.
Yeah, I'd say noise damage would be one. Another one is any constriction to your blood flow. Actually, so diabetes, heart disease. Anything that restricts your circulation can affect your ears. So we all tend to lose our hearing a little bit over age as well, So just the hair cells in your ears, not the hair like on your head, but little hair cells. When the sound comes in, they bend over and that's what sends the signal to the brain.
So they just tend to get a little bit aged, and that works so well.
Can you do anything to sort of give them a bit of a shampoo condition? I mean I always ask dumb questions because sometimes people will say, funnily enough, that's not a dumb question because of X, Y and Z and science.
But anything that keeps your cardiovascular health as good as it can be is the best thing you can do to prevent any aging.
Where are those how far into your ear are those.
Little behind the ear drum and behind the three little bones of hearing. It's the inner ear, which is shaped like a snail and has billions of little wee hair cells standing up. And as the sound wave goes through, so think of it like a wave on the ocean, it bends over those little hairs and off it sends the signal to the brain.
So intuitively, I would imagine that there would be something because if their physical structure and organic physical structure. But I'm making this up as a go along. Is there any work Is there any work going on with regards to restoring people whose heirs have just gone that's the online flat for the rest of the day.
Yes.
Yeah, Actually they've developed a drug that you can take to regrow those hair cells. The problem is they haven't figured out how to stop that growth, so there were halfway there. And then there's also so a genetic kind of hearing loss, which is similar to what I have, and people are born without a certain protein and and so there's there's something in the actual DNA that's that's missing. And with the recent COVID epidemic and the vaccines using
a virus, you know, to transmit it. They've actually put this gene therapy into the virus and injected into the ear and they've restored when baby's hearing in the UK so far, in particular hearing loss. Yeah, she had her sister has double coclear implants, and she's had this gene therapy using this virus as a vehicle to get it into the ear, and her hearing is miraculously normal. It's it's absolutely phenomenal.
Oh my goodness, is that was she profoundly deaf at the time?
Yeah?
Yeah, profoundly?
What can you tell her? A babies profoundly deaf because by whether they were react because you can't say, hey, can you hear this?
I'm going to tell you something fascinating. Your eyes absorbed light and that's what lets you see your ears. Right, sound goes in, but you may not know that your ear produces their tiny little echo of sound back out of your ear. So they test babies by putting his little headphones on. Sounds go in and they measure that little tiny echo coming out to see if the hearing is normal. And they also can test with just some sticker electrodes that they put on the baby's head and
play sounds and watch the brain waves. So yeah, we can. We can check to each frequency.
And so what was the what was the physical Sorry? So with the baby who had genetic hearing loss, Yeah, and you said she was profoundly deft?
Did you say profoundly zero or just a touch like nothing? She was on the list for coclear implants. Yeah, and her older sister already has co clear implants. Yeah. They both had the same genetic mutations. So with this gene therapy, it gave them back what they were missing protein wise, and it fixed her hearing.
Why what did they do it? Why did they try it on a baby rather than someone who was older. Is it because they think that the development she could develop.
Yeah, I don't know the details of that. I'm not sure. But her sister has the cocalarm plants. They're not going to do that with her. She's she's happy with the cochlearan plants and is carrying on doing well.
So I guess she feels it ain't bright, don't fix it. Maybe that is amazing though, is that?
Yeah? So I think we're going to see it in our lifetime for sure.
Wow. Hey, by the way, just a quick question, is the word deaf, okay these days, because you know how people say, hey, what's wrong with you? Death or something it feels I mean to people, is it Is it a word that sort of you still use. It's like as such and such as definitely you say you are suffering from hearing loss, and death is more of a I think it's.
Like everything description fit individual. But I grew up in a deaf family and sign language is our first language, and for us, deaf is the right term capital D deaf, so we identify with deaf culture. You have a whole different Yeah, but hearing loss, hard of hearing?
Checking the terminology because you never have, you know, because times change and some words become It's like, okay, the word would be if someone is disabled. People used to throw around the word crippled, and that is not a word you use. And that's why I was just checking, because our terminology does change, and that's yeah, I was hoping that was a reasonable.
I'd say it's probably more acceptable hearing loss or hearing impaired these days, but I think hard of hearing.
Is still so you have hearing aids yourself, yes, And is that from just a young age or did you get progressive hearing loss a.
Bit of both, so yes, from a young age and it is progressive, so it's getting worse every year. But my grandparents profoundly deaf. You sign language. My dad's quite hard of hearing. We all use sign language growing up because of my grandparents being so close. And my daughter has has a hearing loss as well, so it obviously something runs in our family.
Yeah, so is that what you become an ordeologist in steut of curious? I mean it does sound obvious as.
Well, but yeah, well, the thing is, nobody knows anything about getting your hearing tested. You know, we see on TV people getting their eyes tested, and you have the eye chart in the in the doctor's office, but you know, if you've never had your hearing tested, don't really know what to expect. So when I was little, I was back and forth all the time. I had four sets of gromets as well, and you know I wanted to be on the other side pushing all the fancy buttons,
not just the one button, you know. So yeah, that's how I's how I got into it.
How many changes, what changes have you seen so far since you became an ordiologist? To head of audiology amazing.
Actually, So the first hearing aids that that I used had had tiny little screwdriver adjustments and they were linear and nothing was digital, and you had a million different cables and plugs to plug the hearing aids physically. In was the next step when they were analog but digitally programmable, and now they're fully digital Bluetooth wireless. You just connect everything wirelessly, and they even some of them even have artificial intelligence inside to figure out background noise from speech
and enhance the speech and turn down the noise. It's pretty neat.
That is mind blowing. So it's not we're not just talking an EQ here. We're talking art official intelligence which is processing the sound and going hmm, that sounds like speech, will pop that up. How quickly can it do it?
In real time? Real time? Oh? Absolutely? And there's no lag either with the Bluetooth connectivity. So I stream from the TV straight to my hearing aids. Really yeah, and I can hear it in real time without any any echo. And my partner can watch a one volume, I can watch at another volume, and you can even soon soon, soon we'll be able to select different languages to listen in in real time as well.
So if you're hang on a minute, hold it so I could be talking to you and you can say, I could be talking in French and you would say, just translate that for me as we go close.
But not yet, I'm thinking about TV streaming. TV streaming, so if it's been recorded in different languages, so Netflix, for example, you can choose different languages. You know, if your grandparents were from Korea and they wanted to watch, you know, in their language, and you wanted to watch in English.
Let's say everybody in real I was a step ahead of it. Like in other words, you go on holiday to Frantce and someone says something to you in French and you would say and would translated.
I don't think we're that far away though, because you can stream that through your phone, so we could do that. In theory, how big would your hearing aid need to be to carry that sort of level of energy and processing power? Not very big at all.
You've brought in a collection of hearing aids. There are the ones that look like there's a tiny there's three that look like they fit over the back of your ear with a tiny insertion into your ear, and then there there's the big sort of old school clunky one. Yes, I don't know if that's still in use now, but it's molded saria. Yes, And then it gets a bit smaller but smaller until there's one that's probably the size of.
My probably.
Tip of my tip of my little finger, actually the tip of a smaller person than me, but that is it's way smaller than Yeah.
Yeah, for the recessing to determine speech from noise. It's available in all of them. So the next level with Bluetooth streaming, that chip is a little bit larger, the receiver is a little bit larger, so that would be probably from the medium sized battery upwards. And a lot of them now are rechargeable, so there's that's also the little charger case that I brought in that looks like an air pod case kind of where the hearing aids pop down into it and they charge overnight.
Are these so what's I'm guessing the most expensive one is that one at the end that's tiny the size of my pinky.
That's a great question. Now the size is completely irrelevant. It's what kind of computer chip and features are inside? Yep, yeah, okay, so some people it depends on their type of hearing loss. Some shapes will be more appropriate than others, and some you need to have your own voice escape from your body, so you can't block off your ear because you might have excellent hearing for some sounds. So if you have a partial hearing loss, you want one that doesn't block off your ears.
Oh, I see, so one of the ones that fits behind your ears with a much smaller and I don't.
Know what, do you call it a little sneaker that goes in your ear?
Yeah?
Yeah, and the little end on that speaker should have lots of ventilation holes if your hearing is normal for any of those pitches. And the other useful thing with having the speaker in your ear is if your hearing gets worse, you don't need to purchase any new hearing aids. You just put a new speaker, a stronger speaker on and it can keep up with you. So that's that's the kind that I wear. So if my hearing continues to get worse every year, then I don't need to
buy a new hearing aid. I just put a stronger speaker on and then just adjust the sound output to match.
In terms of the cause of general hearing losses. It all to do with the hairs, those billions of.
Hairs, not always, so that's a permanent hearing loss called a sensory neural loss that's in the cochlea or the nerve. But you can also have a conductive loss, which is the ear drum or the three little bones of hearing. So it's kind of like the equivalent of like an amplifier basically, so you know, when you're underwater and you can hear someone talking above the water, but it sounds very very far away, that mismatch, that volume change. What you'd need is an amplifier to hear somebody on the
other side. And that's what that part of our ear does.
It's funny because we're talking about hearing. I'm consciously adjusting my headphones to see how much I need to turn them down because I'm so tuned to it right now. Just one other question. We're going to take your cause by the way, eight hundred eighty ten eighty. There's lots You may have lots of questions anything about hearing loss. If you are concerned, you want to get some advice.
What's the procedure, what are you what are the range of costs and anything that's involved with addressing your hearing concerns. We want to hear from you on eight hundred eighty ten eighty. You can text on nine two nine two.
Just one thing. I've always been curious about that if it is a loud noise that causes those hairs to lie flat, I guess or give up, how do you prevent the cure not being the cause further cause, because obviously a hearing aid turns up the sound, and so how do you how do you stop that sort of the cure being a cause of further ifness and just chasing your tail?
Yeah? Yeah, And what you're saying is like the glasses analogy, right, Like if you're wearing glasses, your eyes get lazy, sort of thing. With hearing aids, it doesn't really work like that. So what tends to happen is the soft sounds. You won't be able to hear them anymore. If it's noise damage, you won't be able to hear the beginnings and ends of the words just at a few pictures. So the hearing aids will turn up the soft sounds enough that you can hear them, but they still sound soft to you.
Medium sounds are turned up just a little bit and then loud sounds are not touched at all or turned down. Actually, so it's not like it's just overall volume. Everything is up. It has has alternating volume depending on what the input.
Chris, it's fascinating. Look what your calls one eighty ten eighty. My guest is Leslie Smith. She is Triton Hearings Head of Audiology, so I think she's pretty well qualified to answer answer your questions. If you've got me, we'd love to hear from you. We've got lots we can talk about, which will carry on with in just a moment this news talk sai'd b. This is our health AaB. It's
twenty two and a half past four. Yes, and did you know that one in six New Zealanders experience hearing loss and choosing the right hearing solution for your individual needs is important. Your local Triton Hearing team will work with you to find the best hearing solution for your listening needs, lifestyle and budget. So if you or someone close to you is considering hearing aids, the twenty twenty four Consumers Guide to Hearing Aids is out now and
available exclusively from Triton Hearing. It's the only truly independent guide in New Zealand, so you know you're getting the best advice. Find out about the latest hearing aids from top brands. There's information on everything from features and styles to a price guide to help you choose the right hearing devices for your lifestyle and budget. To order your free twenty twenty four Consumers Guide to Hearing Aids, simply visit Tritonhearing dot co dot nz or you can call
on eight hundred forty five forty five forty two. That's eight hundred forty five forty five forty two.
Property, parenting, politics plus health, money and the week's big issues. It's all on the weekend Collector with Tim Beveridge used Talk Sat B and we would.
Sign different dance and we would smoking runned things, making a letter every song excepting Whiskey not taking but Marvel singing Sweet Home Alabama, Our summer life. Yes, News Talk set B eight hundred eighty ten eighty. This is the week in collect for the health and my guest is
from Triton Hearing. It's Leslie Smith, Triton's Hearing. Triton Hearing's head of audiology, and actually Leslie has brought in a bunch of hearing aids for me to ever look at, seven of them, including a sort of I don't know how to describe it actually, but it's a little sort of large bullet shaped device which Leslie acts as what a remote.
Control, So the remote control. Yes, So for the tiny hearing aids that go deep down in the canal that are invisible, they're called iices invisible in the canal or completely in the canal see ices. There's not enough room for a Bluetooth chip because normally we would use your
phone smartphone app to be a full remote. But yeah, it's like a little key chain that you can unscrew the end of and it's got a little magnet that you can hold close to your ear and it lets you adjust through a couple of different volume stages or different programs for different situations.
You're telling me something interesting in the break about the ability just so it's no longer just hearing fitscen rear where you turn it up and down all and that's it. You can for instance, you're saying if you go to a quiz nite or something and the hearing and if it's a bit loud and you're just you're hearing. Next time you go to that quiz nit, because everything's linked up with your phone's right, it'll say, oh, by the way where it knows, oh we're quiz night, let's turn down the volume.
That's right. So it's part of the As I said, the artificial intelligence has been around quite a while, but there's a machine learning subset of it. So as you go along every day, if you turn your volume up on your app or in your remote control consistently, then it will learn. So if you do that over three months, then it will just start doing it for you so you don't have to fiddle around with it anymore.
Amazing. Gosh, I love science. Doesn't science exciting? You know what we can do? And that one you, by the way, the thing about the gene therapy for the baby you had hearing loss, that that is amazing. I think it's very exciting.
New.
Yes, look, I've got a few texts and we've got well we're taking your calls on O eight one hundred and eighty ten eighty What about this? One says guys at work out wearing ear pods instead of ear muffs, to listen to music. As an employer, where do I stand on that. I'm of the opinion they are not going to protect them cheers.
That is such a good question. In fact, it came up just yesterday and I've been doing some research on it. But the it's I haven't found anything specific to New Zealand yet. But from an employer's point of view, you need to use hearing defenders that are certified and at the right grading, And at the moment, the air pods haven't been graded to my knowledge, so I would still recommend that they use proper hearing defenders. But it is an area that I'm going to do quite a bit of.
Research on, like hearing like literally hearing muffs that just they block the sound as opposed to what about imagine they're problematic, but noise canceling earphones and things.
Yeah, yeah, and I think that's what that person texting is inquiring about. So the AirPods or things that are noise canceling, yes, they attenuate the sound, but they're not certified according to the grading that they need for health and safety regulations. It may be coming, but right now I think you'd have to stick with the certified ear muffs in order to meet the health and safety guidelines.
And actually you probably need to get some advice from someone around your and obligation as an employer. But because the people refuse to wear hearing and you've got to give them a job to do, like go and operate that chainsaw, and they say, I've got my EarPods and and you're like, no, no, no, you've could put in you want them to do the job. At some stage, when does it become the just it's their fault, the employee. But that's probably a legal question.
And yeah, I'm not fully okay.
I didn't want to put any pressure on you on that one. I should anyway, Right, let's go to some calls stand by DearS.
Hello, oh hello.
My question is I've got many years disease and I'm deaf in one ear. We're going going deaf.
My concern is will.
It get progressively worse and then therefore have.
To keep updating all the time to new aids? And would the basic aid be okay? Because I can't afford the expensive one?
Yeah?
Have you got hearing aid now?
Now I don't. I'm a bit to go and get them right, right, So, with.
Many years disease. It often can be progressive, so it may continue to drop a bit more. Without seeing your audigram, it's a bit hard to say if it's dropped to where it will stay or not, but I would factor that into your decision making. And as I was saying before, if you go for one that's behind the ear but with a little speaker in your ear, they're quite discreet because they have a little fine wire that's only one millimeter that you can actually see and that goes down
into your ear. That's what I would recommend, because if your hearing continue to drop, then you don't need to purchase a new hearing aid. You can just get a stronger speaker and have that one hearing aid adjusted as you go. I would just a word of advice would be to look for a provider that gives you maybe free care and support going forward so that you don't have to keep paying.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's when sure.
Yeah, I've always gone to try and so yeah, okay, so behind the ear and the speaker in the ear.
Yes, yeah, that's what I would recommend, because then then it could keep up with you and they do last a long time. They're built for six years, but usually the part behind the ear will actually last ten years or so.
Right, okay, and sorry, go ahead. I just wondered does it necessarily go to the other ear as well, or does it affict the other ear that you had lost the hearing because of many years in the other ear.
That's a good question. Usually it will stay just with the men years ear. There's rare cases where it's both years, so probably it will be just the one ear is the most likely scenario.
Okay, great, good, thanks good. Let's go to Alistair. Good Alistair. Hello, Hello, I like to know.
How long batteries will last in the future. Do you think they may last five to teen years in the future.
Oh, that's a good question. What kind of batteries do you use?
Now?
Oh I'm not sure. I'm not sure of a name, okay, but of a trade name, I'm not sure.
That's all right, that's all right. How long do yours last?
Now?
How long do yours last?
Now? A last three months?
Yeah? Okay, Oh that's good. So it's it's hard to say. I'm not in the battery industry, but they do. They do last longer and longer, so I know the rechargeable ones last about two years now.
Yes, they have improved over time.
Yeah, yeah, it depends on how big they are too, and what's inside the battery.
Oh, yes, thank you very much.
Okay, thanks cheers ALUs the nastaying you might take care bye bye. Hey, Actually, are some of them rechargeable these days? I was looking at these really tiny ones. They don't look like something. They all have a battery and that lasts a long time. Or do you take them out at night and pop them on something that charges them?
Yes, they're both. So there's disposable batteries and some and the tinier the battery, the faster they'll die. So the tiniest ones are only two or three days. And then if they're chargeable, then that's a more sensible way to go because the last two years before the rechargeable battery needs to be replaced. And then yep, just pop them in a charger at nighttime and they just.
They don't actually plug and it's just they inducted the charge induction. Gosh, that's another bit of technology that blows me away. Right, let's carry on with the Call's got lots of texts and questions about this. Anthony High.
Afternoon to both of you, Hi, I got pretty poor hearing as a result of industrial power tools and things back in the seventies and early eighties, at the time when people weren't wearing we should have been. So also on top of that, pretty severe tenus or tonight and in recent times because I know my dad, who also written in the same industry, had hearing aids up until he passed away, and he had us through covered by
a SEC. I've been to two separate hearing tests where you go into you're familiar with it, obviously soundproof room, and you sit in that sound group room and you put your headphones on and then you listen to a series of different sounds, usually high pitched sounds. And the first time that I did it, I came out and the results came back and it said, no, you probably
wouldn't qualify for hearing aids. It's not very bad. And I went, well, to be honest with you, in that booth, my tonights and the high pitched noise that it actually makes my ears made it difficult for me to positively be sure that I'm actually properly hearing them, and I put them through them and they said, come back again, we'll have another tribe with what they call the test. Yes, so I did that, but that sort of probably lean in my favor a little bit more. But I still
felt that I was sitting in there pushing buttons. It sounds that I wasn't. I was confusing between the tonight this's and what they were playing. I actually don't think it's an accurate test. It's difficult, isn't that what your opinion? Yeah, it is, and maybe there's something else said I can do, but I hand on heart. No, I've got hearing problems, and I've got some good writs and i know what's
caused it. Yeah, And I'm not officient that wants to go in there and play the fall and just say no, I can't hear anything just so I can get Yeah.
Yeah, and that's right. I mean, you want it to be scientific and you want it to be accurate, so that that second test sounds like it was on the right track for you. Because instead of using just a flat beep, you know, just a beep, it's a bit tricky to hear over the tenatus, so instead they played you a warble sound, so it had kind of a wiggly sort of a sound to it. To make it a bit easier. There's a few other things that can make it easier for you.
To hear.
They can beep the test on and off a few times, because sometimes you can hear the on off better than you can hear a flat sound, so that would be my other recommendation is to have a warble and a pulsed sound, and that will be easier for you to hear over the tenetus. There's a few other objective tests that can be done as well that you don't need to rely on you pushing the button because it can
be challenging. And one is that OAE test I was talking about earlier with babies, where they play a sound in your ear and it measures the little echo coming out of your ear, and that also can can help to add, you know, to all the different pieces of the puzzle for you.
I feel that the bar is hit fairly high from an a sec point of view, because I have no doubt I've got hearing problems. I can't sort of cost a table from someone in the room that's reasonably noisy to hear what they're saying. All the symptoms are there, and I thought this will be where I'm going I'm going to have to go and get a hearing it down two times in a row.
Yeah, it depends on the configuration of the shape of the pattern of the hearing as well. So yeah, there's lots of different factors. And then also with your age as well, so there's there's several different eligibility criteria for ACC. But it sounds like you've got a partial hearing loss for sure. Some sounds like the clarity sounds might be.
Trickier with ACC. By the way, Anthony, I'd keep having a crack at them. You make it difficult for them to say no, okay, appeal, appeal, appeal, You'll be be obstinate because I think so, yeah.
I don't give up easy.
Good on you mate, Okay, thanks for good on. You're good to know. Bye bye. Is coming up to twenty to five News talkshit b got a bunch of calls, plenty of text. So we're talking hearing with the head of Triton Audiology hit Triton Hearings, head of Ideology. There we go, Leslie Smith back in just a moment News Talks. He'd be twenty to five. Welcome back to we can collective. This is the health hub, and my guess is Leslie Smith,
head of ordeology at Triton Hearing, taking your calls. Let's try and crack through as many as we can before we wrap it up. Max. Hello, Hi.
My question is is I've been dead for quite a while. I've had five sets of hearing aids and I'm not happy. I still can't hear very well. I've got my phone on loud, I've got my hearing aids turned up. Should I try some other hearing a person, Yeah, it.
Might be a good idea. Is it that they're not loud enough, We're not clear enough? For Max?
Well, my problem is is I hear somethings and then other things just I'll never hear right. I've watched them do the computer taste and all the rest of it. I've ask them to turned them up. I mean I can't when I play Bridge, sitting across to my car partner on the other side, I have trouble hearing them right right?
And is it that the noise is too loud or is it the voice is not clear?
Well, I'm not sure because I've got on these hearing aids that I've gotten now, which aren't quite two years old. Yeah, I can turn them so I turned the background noise off. Yeah, and I can turn them up so that I can hear in front of me.
Yeah.
Now, should I be going back and saying, look, these hearing aids don't work.
It sounds like they would need an adjustment because you have all the features that you should have. The only other thing I could recommend is like a remote microphone that sits on the table or your partner wears, and then you can hear that person from like ten meters away really clearly. So that's the only other tech that you could add to the system. But I would try getting them readjusted first.
So well, before I go back to my do you have a triton hearing in Taranaki at all?
In Taranaki? I'm sure we. I'm sure we must not at the top of my head, but the address would be.
Look, I might just look at that, because, as I say, I've been beginning to get a bit annoyed with my hearing aids because over the years, I mean I once gotten sent back and saying I shouldn't work in the dirty area. But I was a bloody plumber. Yeah, yeah, I worked in dirty areas.
We do have a great traiting clinic in New Plymouth. Would that be you do? Yes, yep, yep.
Are you on the internet there, Max? Do you have the Internet?
I'm not very good, but I do. I couldn't have it on my phone. I'm saying. It's just if I'm on a c C. Would I still have to pay AC fee or would I have to pay a full fee?
No?
No, you can just go along to a Traton clinic and have a free full assessment and and then they can give you some advice from there.
Okay, thanks, thanks Max. And look at if you're in just Google Maps or something, just look for TRT and hearing it. W'll give you the load with the one nearest you. But also go try and hearing dot co dot in Z. The Internet's pretty helpful that so these days, and if you misspell it, they'll still go Did you mean try and hearing? Yeah, that's the one. Thanks very much. Right. More calls Beryl Hello.
Hello, Sorry, I've only just tuned in radio radio date with you, but I couldn't get the name of your.
Visitor, Leslie Leslie.
Okay, can I talk to Leslie?
Yes, yes, I'm here.
Berro Hello, Lucie, Look, I've only just chained. Don I know that you're talking not to the last thing one, but the one before at that tentatus with which I've rung up. About what I would like to know is a two on one question. One is can tinaous low you're hearing? And two are they doing anything much about tinatus?
Yeah, it's a really good question. Usually tinatus is a side effect of hearing loss, So it's usually because your hearing is down that you hear tinatus. And it's not like it's going to make your hearing worse, but you'll notice the tinatus louder the worse you're hearing is, and you'll notice it louder in quiet places. So the best thing to help with tinatus is twofold threefold. Probably One, protect your ears from noisy sounds to avoid complete silence,
because that's when you'll hear it the worst. So if you're trying to sleep at night, use like a fan or some ambient sound. Put the radio on very softly. That'll help to keep your ears busy, but not too loud, just nice and softly in the background. And three, if your hearing is down at all, try some kind of hearing it that's not too loud, but just gives you back the sounds that you're missing. So just gives you back those soft sounds, and while you're wearing them, the
tenatus will go down about eighty percent. That's usually what happens.
Yeah, that's Lousie so much.
Thanks, Beryl, cheers.
Okay, nice to meet you, Beryl.
Somebody says that they had some hearing loss and they went to someone who had performed a step addict to me, which is something to do with that bone and the conductivity, and it was said it was a miracle. Yeah, sort of restortion of hearing loss.
That's right. So for that person, those three little bones of hearing and the ear drum, they act like an amplifier like I was saying earlier. So if those three little bones get too stiff, then the sound isn't amplified going into the ear, so it's like wearing an ear plug essentially. So having that little bone fixed would have been yeah.
Change changed his life. Yeah yeah, yeah, let's go to another call. Bill.
Hello, oh h look reading.
Yes, hi Bill, I'm going to put you back to my producer. We'll do a text or two and then you can have a chat with him because you're just a bit distant there. One of the questions we've got someone about and worried about. My grandson constantly plugged in with headphones twenty four to seven, working on zoom calls at the gym, listening to music all the time. Is this dangerous because my instinct would say, well, possibly if he's got his settings wrong.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So again, it's any kind of noise damage is how loud and how long you're exposed. So the advice would be to where any kind of headphones, either in the ear or over the ear headphones at about fifty percent fifty to sixty percent, because that should let you wear it safely for hours. It sounds like that's what the situation is for this person. And as you go louder and louder and louder, it just drastically
reduces the sound. So if you're wearing them at max, for example, five to ten minutes would be damaging, So you want to wear them around around mid volume.
Okay, here's another one from Kath. I have difficulty who I'm talking with there, and there are other conversations going on around me. I'm forty four sorts of a new issue for me, it's likely a hearing problem or ADHD, asks Kath, Well, we can't comment on ADHD. That does sound like that is one of the one of the signs that you would want to get your hearing checked A nice Yeah.
I would recommend just having a hearing test because it could be that you're not deaf, but it could just be very subtle at a couple of pitches.
How much is the hearing what's the story with getting your hearing checked?
What's I mean free free test? Yep? Yeah, so we believe in you know, awareness and getting your hearing test before it becomes a problem. So hearing prevention is always always the best. But yep, come in and have a free test. You can have either a free screening or a full diagnostic test, depending on what you need.
So when do you start paying for things?
Well, hearing aids aren't free, so you pay for hearing aid, but we have free after care. So if you do purchase a hearing aid, we're not going to run away, and you have free appointments for life.
Okay, we need to take a moment. We'll be back in just a tick. It's coming up to nine minutes to five news Talk said, b.
To soon Tuna.
No, yes, welcome back. News Talk said, be gosh, time flies when you're having fun. We're with the Leslie Smith Tritton, Hearing's head of audiology. Look, look, we can only ever scratched the top of the issues around hearing and all the solutions that are there. But Leslie, the AI think fascinates me as to the future of and it has some people get upset about AI when it comes to Google and not analyzing your data, but I want to think that it comes to health products and things that
can improve your life. It really is quite exciting.
Isn't that fascinating? Yeah, And it's been around for twenty five years and hearing aids and it's only going to keep getting better and better. So with the sound classifier, so now the hearing aids can tell if it's music and they don't alter the sound. In fact, they turn off all the sound cleaning because of course you want
to hear music as pure as it is. They can tell if you're on the phone, they can tell if you're streaming, so they try to turn up the volume a little bit and reduce the microphone a wee bit. If they can tell if you're in background noise. If it's background noise, that speech, and they can tell where the speech is around you. So it's all around just
trying to trying to create that cocktail party effect. If you have normal hearing, you can look at somebody and focus on them and then chune everybody else out, or.
Even the entry level expenses, because imagine the price range would be like any sort of thing, you can go for the sort of basic one, but to get a hearing aid as a relatively sophisticated hearing aid, what sort of what's the ballpark that you're spending? Hard to say, I guess.
Yeah, well, middle of the road would probably be about four and a half five and a half thousand for a pair, and they start anywhere from five hundred dollars for a pair.
What are you getting for five hundred bucks?
Two really good solid hearing aids Bluetooth capable, but without all the sound classifiers.
Without the AI probably yes.
Yeah, so it would be more basic. It would be more like I'm listening in quiet, or you can drive it and say now I'm listening in background noise, so they don't switch as automatically for you on their own.
It's funny because well, I think sometimes with regards to things that are important for our everyday existence and health, we sometimes go all that's a lot, but then we go spend fifteen hundred bucks on a cell phone without thinking about it.
Oh that's right.
And so look, I'm not that I'm arguing either way, but and yeah, the higher.
Up in technology you go, the more and more automatic it is, the more fidelity it has, it can and cut down noise when you're in the car, for example, so you can hear your passengers.
Just fascinating And if people want to learn more they can go to Trent and Hearing And don't forget if you want to check your hearing, it's free. Just call up your local TRT and Hearing. And thanks very much, Leslie, love to see you again.
Thanks for having me.
We'll look forward to next time and we'll be back just a minute. In just a moment, Smart Money is next
A very For more from the Weekend Collective, listen live to News Talks it'd be weekends from three pm, or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.