During the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, many audiologists, including FitHearing Audiology, began to make more use of TeleHealth. This relatively new technology made it possible for our patients to receive crucial updates to their hearing aid fitment without needing to risk exposure to the virus by coming into the office.
While increasing social distance is one good reason to employ TeleHealth technology, there are other advantages, as well. Fitment has always been a give-and-take process, where what seems ideal in a clinical environment sometimes doesn’t translate well to the real world. And as we all know, the real world is where your hearing aids really need to work! When we adjust your fitment via TeleHealth technology, you can meet us anywhere you like—and check the results in real time to make sure your new fitment is working for you in the places you need to be.
This convenience is made possible by recent advances in hearing aid technology that allows them to connect via Bluetooth to iPhones and most Android devices. Every major hearing aid manufacturer offers Bluetooth connectivity at this point. While Bluetooth is great for streaming music and other entertainment media directly to your hearing aids, that’s not all it can do by a long shot. Downloadable smartphone apps allow you to control the volume and other settings in your hearing aids, keep track of health statistics measured by your hearing aids, take a hearing test, and, yes, even videoconference with us directly to make fitment adjustments right through the app.
While many of these things are possible with more than one hearing aid company, we’d like to focus today on Starkey’s Thrive Hearing Control app and the versatile functionality it offers hearing aid wearers today.
Thrive Hearing Control
Thrive is Starkey’s main control app, where you can control the volume and memory programming of your hearing aids. The volume control gives you separate control over the hearing aids’ microphones and streamed content, which is very useful if you’re, say, taking a phone call but want to remain aware of your surroundings. The “memory” feature lets you save different settings and name them, so you can return to them whenever you find yourself in the same situation again. For example, you can create a setting called “Cafe” that gives you the best hearing experience at your favorite coffee shop. While these are features you may find yourself reaching for regularly, they’re not the only thing the app can do.
Body Tracking allows you to monitor your daily steps, general movement, and even more vigorous physical activity. It presents you with an overall assessment of how much movement and exercise you’re getting in the course of your day, so you can see whether you’re meeting your goals.
Brain Tracking keeps a record of how often you’re engaging in conversation, as well as other signs that you’re interacting with the world in the ways that hearing aids allow. One of the primary goals of hearing aids is to keep feeding information to your brain, and the app allows you to see just how well your hearing aids are doing that.
Both Body and Brain Tracking allow you to share the information collected with whomever you choose, if you wish to do so. Similarly, the Fall Alert function will notify any specified person(s) if the biometric data collected by your hearing aids indicates that you have fallen down. While it will not alert medical services directly, it can be a useful function as a first line of response.
Mask Mode boosts the frequencies of speech that are most reduced by wearing a mask. If you’re having trouble hearing someone because of a mask, click on Mask Mode and you’ll get an extra hearing bump just where you need it.
Thrive also allows you to set Reminders within the app to let you know when to take medication or other scheduled tasks.
You can even have the app Translate any of the 27 languages programmed into it. When set to Translate mode, the words spoken to you will be interpreted and translated right through your hearing aids, as though you had an interpreter in the room!
If you or a loved one is having hearing issues and is not yet wearing hearing aids, there’s never been a better time to seek the treatment you need. Call us today to make an appointment for a hearing test and find out how hearing aids can improve your health and well-being!
