CEU Courses Recorded Webinars

This course will review updates in compatibility with CROS B and Phonak's new Belong platform. Performance details and benefits for single sided hearing patients will also be reviewed.

Listening takes effort. The amount of effort that is required varies depending on the individuals, the environments, as well as the quality of the hearing aid processed sounds. In recent years, the field of Audiology recognizes that the nature of the hearing aid processed sounds could affect the amount of listening effort that the listeners invest into understanding, and that the cognitive capacity of the individuals could affect the final outcome of their effort. We argue, if we design the hearing aids with a goal such that its output requires the least amount of effort from the listeners to understand, such hearing aids would result in satisfaction in more people, regardless of their cognitive backgrounds. Since the UNIQUE (and continuing into the BEYOND), Widex has followed the “Effortless Hearing” design rationale in designing its hearing aids. This requires us to be generous in capturing the full range of sounds in the listeners’ environment, to be accurate in purifying the sounds that the listeners may not need, and to be innovative in processing the sounds that the listeners want. This also requires us to carefully take the individual’s characteristics into account when specifying the hearing aid output. In this presentation, we will review why an “Effortless Hearing” design rationale is critical, how different hearing aid features could ensure effortless hearing, and present evidence in support of each feature.

In the Spring of 2017, Oticon launched a series of important additions to the Opn product family, all designed to meet the audiological needs of more and more patients. We have extended this paradigm shifting product to include BTEs, T-coils, Tinnitus Sound Support, Speech Rescue and Special Use Programs. All-in-all, we want to be able to bring the benefits of Opn and the Open Sound Navigator to patients with a broad range of needs related to their hearing impairment and lifestyle.

Prescriptive targets are the primary means of ensuring that a hearing aid fitting is appropriate. However, it is only a starting point for audibility. The SII (speech intelligibility index) is another way to determine if the signal is audible to the patient. While these are both useful and necessary measurements, they can also be misused in the hearing aid fitting for adults. This course will discuss the importance of SII and targets and situations where the audiologists’ knowledge and interactions with the patients should over-ride these measurements.

This course highlights the features of the Compass GPS 2.4 VA for our government services customers. We will discuss added features, steps for an initial fitting, and the flexibility offered for fine tuning adjustments.