July 7, 2025 • 39 mins
Have you been to too many loud concerts? Do you sometimes have difficulty hearing what people say to you? Our ears are highly sensitive to loud noise. Even very short exposures to high-level sounds at a concert or sporting event (anything above 132 decibels) can cause permanent hearing loss for some people. If you think you may be hard of hearing, there are resources available to help you navigate your challenge. Amy Evans, Strategic Planner for the NHhears Initiative and board member with the Northeast Deaf and Hard of Hearing Services, Inc., joined Bradley Jay to chat about preventive measures, treatments, and tools to help navigate hearing loss and improve quality of life for the hearing impaired.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's night Side with Dan Ray on WBZ Coston's news Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Yes, WBZ News Radio ten thirty night Side with Dan
Ray and Bradley j for Dan. Thank you again to
Peter Wolf for joining us. That's a big, big deal
and the book is waiting on the Moon, Artist poets,
strif scripts and goddesses. And also while I'm out of
thanks to Chatchi the Print, Breakfast with the Beatles, Jock
and BCN Junk for helping set this up as well
(00:27):
as thank you to David Bieber for being instrumental in
having that all go so smoothly. Thank you very much.
And if you missed the Peterwolf interview, all is not
lost because it is accessible on demand at Nightside on
Demand dot com. That's Nightside on Demand dot Com. Now
most of you have been exposed to loud noises. I
(00:49):
know I have. Whether it's a factory noises which are
really loud, construction noise. Maybe you work at the South
Postal Annex with all those noisy postal machines, traffic noise,
airplane noise, or maybe like me, dozens or hundreds of
rock concerts, or maybe you're even in a band and
(01:10):
you're standing right beside the drummer whacking that snare drum
bang bang right in your ear, gig after gig. My
friend Steve Kilroy has been a drummer all his life.
He's on tour now, He's always on tour with various bands.
I don't see how he can hear anything I say
to you. Your ears ring? He goes yup. Than good dude,
(01:33):
how do you live like that? Well, we're going to
talk a little bit about hearing loss, but that's kind
of negative, so I'd rather position it as talk about
hearing gain. Are he gaining your hearing and improving your
quality of life? And you may not even realize that
you can't hear because it's kind of gradual. So we
(01:54):
do have a guest who's an expert on all this,
and I'm really thrilled to have Amy Amy Evans with
us here, who is the a board member for the
Northeast Deaf and Hard of Hearing Services Inc. And strategic
planner for New Hampshire Here's Initiative.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
Hi Amy, Hello Bradley.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
Well, it's great to have you with us. Before we
get started into what you do, tell us a little
bit about you.
Speaker 3 (02:21):
Well, I am a board member at Northeast Stephen hard
of hearing in this capacity. And also I have developed
one of their initiatives which really didn't occur to anybody
until I was brought onto the board as a person
with sort of mild hearing loss. I also am an author,
and I act in commercials and I have four children,
(02:43):
so quite a nice, rich lifestyle.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
That's nice. Now I know I have hearing loss because
A I know I must be the audiologist told me,
and see, I can't hear some stuff, so it's pretty
likely I have hearing loss. And my situation, it's the
dialogue in the TV. It's kind of hard to see
say it's so hard to hear, so I'm asking what
(03:07):
do they say? What did they say? I think that's
one of the one of the first things. And also
asking people to repeat what was that? You know, it
used to be you could hear your partner yelling to
you from the kitchen and understand it, and now you're
kind of like what you just wait till they come
in the room. So how many people have some sort
of hearing losses, especially in the older demos, Well.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
It's very very common. It's more common actually than hearing
loss in general, it's more common in diabetes. So about
forty eight million Americans or more have some form of
hearing loss. You can go all the way to being
deaf or having just trouble understanding speech and noise, for example,
when you're at a bar or you're you know, at
(03:53):
a restaurant. You don't necessarily have hearing loss per se
as we think of it, but you're you are able
to distinguish sounds like you could when you were younger.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
So if you say one in, it's about one in
six Americans have some sort of hearing loss. If you
get into the older demo, then it must be like
one in like half.
Speaker 3 (04:16):
Right, Well, it goes up, and it keeps going up
until you're about ninety, and then most people have it
when they're ninety. But what happens is, as you said,
it's very gradual, so you don't really notice it yourself.
Other people might point it out to you, like you
you know, you can send what too many times to me,
and this is because it's gradual, and the sounds that
(04:39):
you don't hear are soft sounds like the letter P
or F or f, so you cannot You can mix
up words like peach or beach. You might not be
able to tell of someone speaking to you. But yes,
many many old people, older people, I should say. And
when I say when I say old, Bradley, I don't
(04:59):
really mean old. It's kind of like when you get
you start to need reading glasses and people are very
sort of embarrassed about it, and they and they put
them on the other nose and they take them off
right away. The same thing has happen to the rest
of your body, and you are getting older. So inside
of your ear, and I'm I'm not an audiologist, I
just want to make that clear, but I had to
(05:20):
learn a lot in writing this website that I developed,
which we'll talk about later. But in your ear there
are these little hairs called stereocilia, and on the outside,
when it starts rolling around in your cook let's like
a shell. They get the outside ones get a lot
of use. And those are those sounds that I mentioned
that you're starting not to be able to hear. So
(05:42):
it stands to reason as you get older, things get
used more. They're gonna get worn down. They're going to
get mowed down with really loud noises. But gradually, over
time you just start to hear some parts of speech
or some parts of certain noises that you can't distinguish
speech anymore, which is really import but that's not the
most important thing about getting or hearing loss or you're
(06:05):
hearing diagnosed. Your brain is not working as hard if
you can't hear things. So when you're saying you know
you have hearing loss, Bradley, I hope that you have
hearing aids and you're getting it addressed, because in order
for your brain to work to a high function, it
has to hear all of the sounds that are out there,
(06:25):
Otherwise it starts to atrophy. You know, you can't hear things,
but your brain is hearing things that you and I
aren't even paying attention to right now. It's paying attention
to little crinkles and pops and things behind us that
we're ignoring in a conversation, but in the background, it
keeps your brain active and strong.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
So does that include parts of the brain that are
not involved with hearing. Does that make the math part
of my brain dumber because my brain is atrophying in general?
Speaker 3 (06:56):
I can't really answer that, but it kind of makes sense,
doesn't it. It's kind of like if you. If you're exercising,
your whole body feels good, and you're working all your systems,
all your muscles, even though you might just be saying
I'm just focusing on one, but you're standing up or
you're sitting or whatever, You're using muscles, you're getting fresh air.
(07:16):
You know, all these things are so important. So we're
a system. So I imagine in your brain that must
be similar. I can't answer that definitively, but it does
sound to me like that would make sense. Your brain
is going to attrophy as you age anyway, so why
accelerate that by not hearing as much as you can?
Speaker 2 (07:33):
You know, your brain is like an automobile. Actually the
body is a lot like an automobile with its systems,
but the brain is I mean, excuse me. The body
is like an automobile. You can keep the engine running,
but other stuff kind of breaks down, like do you
need new brake pads and you need you know, your
shocks go and this stuff. And your body's kind of
like that that can keep the thing going. But the
(07:54):
part exactly the parts, you know, they're never the same.
They burn out. But happily there's we will get into
the happy part of the story because there's a lot
of technology available now. It's really much better than it
used to be to help you here. And there's something
about hearing is that I did not understand that we'll
(08:15):
find out later too that before quickly, before we take
a break, tell me about the Northeast Deaf and Heart
of Hearing Services.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
Well, it's a nonprofit organization. We're based in New Hampshire
and we are dedicated to serving everybody in New Hampshire
but the Death and Heart of Hearing community through empowerment,
education and advocacy. So what we tried to do is
it's mostly a contract based organization at this point, so
in schools or if you need to have a sign
(08:46):
language interpreter, if you go to a doctor's appointment, they
would facilitate that. But when I was on the board,
I noticed that we were doing primarily that kind of
service to our community, but that we were neglecting a
giant population, which is a population them I'm a part of,
just a really mildly hard of hearing person from pressecutives,
which is what happens to you as you get older.
(09:08):
So I encourage them to kind of address this group
of people who really aren't getting any help at all.
And what happens is you start to not go to
things anymore. You can't understand the the you know, the
dialogue in a movie, so you stay home. You can't
understand you're a partner in a restaurant, so you stay home.
And this is part of the trend towards dementia. So
(09:30):
we have answers for you. Though it's not all bad,
but if you don't address it, it can be very bad.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
And the answers are coming up after a break, before
the break strategic you're a strategic planner at New Hampshire.
Here is initiative and I check their website out extensively
and we'll get into some of the things they have there,
but can you give me an overview before we get
into it in depth after the break?
Speaker 3 (09:52):
Sure? And that's my baby's. That was my idea that
we needed to have a place for people who do
not identify as hard of hearing. They're not in the
population that I mentioned before that our our organization serves.
So it's just people who want to continue their lives
as they've been living them, but they're challenged by hearing now,
so they don't really want to participate in any you know,
(10:16):
necessarily support groups or they're certainly not using sign language interpreters.
So I developed this website so there's a place for
anybody to can go to learn more about hearing laws,
what to do about it, and then how to make
life easier if you do have.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
It, okay, And about the word hard of hearing, this
is the following is meant to be humorous and in
no way put down anything to do with heart of hearing.
But it's a strange old timey turn heard of hearing,
he's hard of hearing, because if you can't sing, you're
not heard of singing. If you can't, yeah, i'm hard
(10:52):
of running. I can't run.
Speaker 3 (10:53):
Well, good for you. That's a very good point. It
is quite quite old fashioned sounding and I can't.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
And I think if I were the boss of everything,
I would change the name because there's a lot of
baggage associated with a negative baggage from the past, exactly
which I guess.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
We'll put it on a website.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
With the word deaf, deaf and hard of hearing are
these negative terms. It's got to be a better phrase.
We could talk about that and much more. And if
you if you have any insights on this. Folks, if
you think or know that you are suffering some hearing
loss and you have questions or you want to know
what to do about it, please do join us. You're
(11:33):
now welcome to join us at six one seven two
five four ten thirty six one seven, two five four,
ten thirty on WBZ News Radio ten thirty.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
Night Side with Dan Ray on WBZ Boston's news Radio.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
That's correct. I'm Bradley Jay and for Dan on night Side,
and we're with Amy Evans, board member of Northeast Deaf
and Heart of Hearing Services INK and strategic planner of
New Hampshire. Here's initiative which is quite a thing with
lots and lots of solutions on that, and we'll talk
about that later. Amy. We do have some folks that
want to check in and ask a question or make
a comment. Are you ready? I am okay, Amy in Chelmsford, Hello, Amy, Hi.
Speaker 4 (12:17):
It's Jamie.
Speaker 3 (12:18):
I was just calling. I have a.
Speaker 4 (12:21):
Heart of hearing mother. She's been hard of hearing her
whole entire life. I'm also simula interpreter and I also
experienced like the traditional prosecutes in my family with my
grandfather as a result of diabetes, and so I just
wanted to hear more about your thoughts about the stigma
(12:44):
associated with the label. I heard the host. I know
it's not Dan Alivisa talking about the stigma with being
hard of hearing when you're stuck in between worlds. In
my experience from what I seen and I've experienced the
death community, which is just to point it out, bradly,
(13:05):
death is actually capital D death, which is an awesome term.
It you could be called death and dumb. But I
wanted to hear her thoughts about what does it mean
right now? What is the point of all of this
for heart of hearing people, and like does she plan
on renaming that and relabeling that, and like what are
your plans for connecting with people that are stuck in
(13:27):
between worlds where they can't use the sign language interpreter
They didn't learn those skills as a kid. Maybe it's
not just prostitutis. It could be anything across the ganet.
But what are your thoughts on that?
Speaker 2 (13:38):
Yeah, and I agree, I just want to say that
nothing there is there is a stigma. Nothing says old
person like people perceive that they don't want to be
perceived as old because nothing says old person like hearing it.
But that's not necessarily the truth now with the new equipment.
But can you address that, Amy Evans?
Speaker 3 (13:59):
Sure? Sure, and thanks for calling, Jamie. I really appreciate that,
and that you're an advocate for the deaf community and
you know you understand the spectrum of hearing so and
you and you actually sign so you're right, it's a tip.
It's a different world, it's a different language, is a culture,
and when you are not in that culture your entire life,
(14:22):
and suddenly you are stressed and strained to try to
understand speech. Again, you don't even sometimes aren't even aware
of what you're not hearing besides speech. But we'll talk
about speech. What we are trying to do in your
Hampshire hears and we just are doing in a Hampshire
because that's where I'm based. But it's a small state
and I live in Comfort, you know, relatively small area.
(14:45):
We thought if we could do this micro version of
really empowering people to understand that it's really more about communication,
and our website says that on the top we're about comprehension,
communication and community. So I want people to understand that
this is a shared responsibility. When you have a message
(15:06):
to give to someone, you want them to understand your message.
So if you set yourself off the success to be
understood that it helps the person who's trying to hear. Also,
so speakers should always have light on their face. They
shouldn't have a window behind them if they're making a presentation,
Obviously speak clearly and face someone face to face. For
(15:29):
people who are hard of hearing in the giant spectrum
of part of hearing and are not signing, but can
hear either you know, with the hearing aid or buy
these methods of making someone more easily understood. It goes
a long way, and we're trying to do other things
and conquered by talking to restaurant owners. You know, there
(15:51):
used to be I remember this when they had a
no smoking section. A giant part of a restaurant would
be you know, cordon dof for smokers. It was ridiculus
because smoke who's wafting through the air and everything. But
we could do that for a quiet corner of a restaurant.
We could disable the speaker over the table so people
can understand each other and during COVID, we had plexiglass
(16:13):
around booths and some places still do. That really helps
to hear in these situations. So, Jamie, to your question,
we're trying to really sort of say, it's more about
communicating how we can help people understand the message that
we really want people to understand. So then the responsibility
is not so much on the person trying to hear.
(16:34):
We're going to talk later. I think about all the
technology that can help people who are struggling to hear,
and there's a lot of it.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
Thanks Jamie, appreciate it. That's an excellent call and an
excellent response for our excellent guest Gene and Everett. Do
you have something to share with us?
Speaker 5 (16:53):
Yes, Hi, good evening, Thank you. This is a good subject.
I had a hearing test finally earlier this year because
I was noticing that I can't hear as good. I
can't hear things I used to hear from a certain distance,
(17:13):
Like my radio is on my counter and my table
is four steps away. But at night, when I turned
the radio on to hear your show or Dan Ray's show,
I have to put my little transistor on the r
table so I can hear clearer. So I don't miss
something I can't hear as good four steps away. Now,
(17:36):
my hearing tests showed that I did have some mild
to moderate hearing loss, but there wasn't a real good
This was a specialist in a hospital, but it wasn't
a real good answer for me about what I could
do for this, other than, you know, a brochure that
tells me there's this, that and the other hearing aid,
(17:56):
but you know, not really you know, giving me a
real in depth information. Where should I go to look
at these things? Does Medicare pay for anything? Probably not.
Does my other insurance pay for anything, probably not that
kind of thing. So I'm left with knowing I have it,
which I knew anyway, but there's no answer for me
(18:17):
what to do for it. And I'm not a wealthy person.
I worked all my life and I'm just a you know,
retired person at this point, trying to pay my guests
and electric pills.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
For Gene and Everett.
Speaker 3 (18:36):
Jane, thank you for sharing your story. If you have
mild to moderate hearing loss, that's pretty pretty significant. It's
a pretty significant impact on your life. So I would
recommend you go to an audiologist. If you go to
an audiologist. They will give you more tests. It's not
that expensive an appointment generally.
Speaker 5 (18:57):
I actually had a specialist hearing steffist that did the
hearing test and had the had the specialist doctor Audio,
whatever his name was. He was a hearing doctor. He
looked at my ears and he read the report from
the hearing test. I had the whole hearing test, every
single bit of it. That's when they found out I
(19:19):
had Mount Tomnit And did.
Speaker 3 (19:22):
They recommend that you get hearing aids?
Speaker 5 (19:25):
Well, he said that I could, but he didn't. He
didn't say He didn't really tell me anything about where
to go, how I can get it. He's handed me
a brochure. You know, do you feel conformation online?
Speaker 3 (19:40):
Would you feel comfortable going and reading a website? Because
this is why why we didn't.
Speaker 5 (19:46):
I was, yeah, I'd like to find a place where
I can get more information. And I have no idea
what they cost or what's good or bad. But I
know my sister in law bought something very inexpensive and
it fell apart in her ear and she had a
problem with her Ian went to the doctor and they
found a piece of it. So I'm not going with
the very very cheap version of whatever it is. But
(20:08):
I'd like to find out what they have and how
I find out more about it and maybe get one.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
Sounds like yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (20:17):
For her, right, Yeah, it's called NA the letters N H, A,
P R S so New Hampshire. Here's dot org and
on that you'll find all the answers to the questions
you just told me. And I also want you to
know that just recently, well a couple of years ago,
used to have to go to an audiologist to get
(20:38):
hearing it, but now you can buy them over the counter,
and there is a big range of prices and also functions,
So I don't know if I can some of the
big delate words.
Speaker 5 (20:51):
Do they fit you forward, like somehow they sit you
down and try them out?
Speaker 3 (20:56):
Or yes, if you go to an audiologist going to
have a lot higher service level. But oftentimes the over
the counter hearing aids have websites and they'll help you,
usually through your phone. They fit it so they'll calibrate
it to the degree it can through your phone, But
go to a website firston you'll learn a little bit
(21:18):
more about hearing loss and how important a hearing aid is.
And it does describe the different kinds of hearing aids
there are great.
Speaker 5 (21:25):
Can you give me that website again a little slower.
Speaker 3 (21:28):
Sure, it's the letters n H, H E A R
s SO New Hampshire hears dot org org.
Speaker 5 (21:40):
Okay, I'll definitely pop on there and read as much
as I can about it. And I appreciate it. This
was a great topic tonight and I appreciate you being
on and everybody. I appreciate it. Thanks so much, Thanks
to you.
Speaker 3 (21:55):
Have a good night, Thank you very much.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Now after the break, we'll get into some of the
the solutions that exist, like one's even in your phone.
And also there's a real good preventative measure that in
possibly in your iPods, which I use. It saves my
hearing a lot. It's life saver. We'll share that and
much more. There's so much, so much good news, so
(22:21):
much information that's helpful on New Hampshire, the New Hampshire
Here's initiative and what's the actual website New Hampshire Here's.
Speaker 3 (22:28):
What Yeah, NH heres dot org and h.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
Here's h G A RS dot org. More with Amy
Evans on this topic. In a moment on WBZ.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
You're on the Night Side with Dan Ray on WBZ
Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
It is night Time with Dan Ray. Bradley j for Dan,
and we're speaking about hearing hearing loss, or more importantly,
hearing regaining. Now we're going to get to the good
news and talk about technologies that exist, and some of
them are available without going anywhere, Some are available on
your phone, and some are available without going to the doctor. Certainly.
(23:10):
Our guest is Amy Evans, who is a board member
of the Northeast Deaf and Heart of Hearing Services Incorporated
and Strategic Planning for nh HERES, the nh Here's Initiative.
So let's get into some the things that are available
to help people out. I guess first the things and
there are a lot of them, and they're all on
the New Hampshire Here's Initiative website. But I want to
(23:34):
go through them, and we'll do it in brisk fashion
because there's so many of them. First of all, here, actually,
I do want to talk about hearing aids first. Hearing
aids aren't just amplifiers. Hearing aids are calibrated for your
(23:56):
particular hearing loss. So say that there's a graph of
where your hearing loss is, they can see that and
calibrate the hearing the hearing aids so that it fills
in only the parts you're missing, which is really important.
And I think it might be related to tenetus because
a doctor told me that tenetists are ringing in your
(24:18):
ears in some cases is simply your brain filling in
noise in those gaps that you can no longer hear.
And I'm wondering if a hearing aid does fill in
those gaps, does your tenetists go away?
Speaker 3 (24:33):
Well? For tenetus or some people say tonight is it's
either way. It's a phantom sound, so it's not a
real sound that other people would hear. It's literally all
in your head. So when you get a hearing aid,
you're focusing on other sounds that are out in the
world that you are not hearing because you have hearing loss,
(24:54):
and it's damping up your attention to those sounds, so
you start to just ignore the phantom sound and that's
you know, there are also oral training and things that
can help you kind of calm down about it, you know,
make it your friend. It's there, you know, ways to
just not have you hear it so acutely that it
drives you insane, which sometimes people feel like that, and.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
Things exacerbate at least my mild mild mild senatus are dehydration, overtiredness,
and caffeine that for some reason, those things make it worse. Happily,
as soon as I went to one concert and I
don't know, fifteen years ago and it was so loud,
(25:40):
I said, that's it. I am not messing with my
hearing anymore because I didn't want to get ringing in
the ears. And so I must admit I don't go
to loud concerts anymore. I've been to a million anyway,
done that, been there. I don't need to go and
risk my hearing. I'll go to more singer song writer
ey type of things are quieter shows. Now there are
(26:04):
things other than hearing. Oh back to hearing aids. What
do they look like now? Are they inconspicuous?
Speaker 3 (26:11):
Well, let's just talk about that a little bit bradly,
because you did say you felt it was you know,
it's kind of scrains. You're old if you're wearing a
hearing aid. But now that we've learned about hearing, what
untreated hearing loss means to your brain, you're the smart person.
Just wearing a hearing aid because the other people who
are ignoring it, their brains are actraphying and they're sliding
(26:33):
into the possibility of dementia and also depression and falls
and all these other things. And regarding the concerts really
quickly too, you know you can where as you know, musician,
hearing aids help a lot with keeping the noise volume
down so you don't damage yourself your ears. But I
just went to a movie the other night, f One
with Brad Pitt, and it was really loud. So I
(26:58):
put in my AirPods too, in the you know the
function where it's a transparent thing, you had noise cancelation.
Rather I could hear everything fine. And one of the
things that I wanted to tell you about it's not
on your phone, but if you go to a movie,
you can request a subtitle device and it goes in
your cup holder and it's say, I've got a gooseeneck
(27:19):
on it, and then it goes right underneath the screen.
So what I did at that particular movie is there
was a lot of dialogue that normally I might not
be able to understand that well, I read the captions
and then I protected my ears from the loud cars
and F one Formula one cars with my AirPods too.
So I had this, you know, menu of things that
(27:41):
was going to work for me to have this wonderful time,
to be able to go somewhere. You can do it
in a concert too. You can we're hearing protection like
AirPods too, or it can break through if you have
to talk to somebody, you know, make it work for
you whatever, and stay in the game, like, don't go
to things because you don't have any technology to protect you.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
I'm gonna drill down on the air pods. Two things.
So folks, as you know, Apple makes AirPods. They made
regular AirPods, then the next generation, but then they made
the AirPods Pro line and on Apple AirPod pros, when
you get them synced up with your phone, you go
to you open your Bluetooth and then you hit AirPods
(28:25):
Pro and you have a menu of choices and you
can cancel out all noise, and my god, it cancels
out probably ninety six percent of sound. You can barely
hear anything. But that's I mean, that's not fun for me.
Then there's another one called adaptive adaptive canceling that's the
(28:53):
one I use. And depending on the loudness, it kicks
in more more. The louder it is, it kicks in more.
And you can go to a concert with using the
adaptive cancelation mode and you hear a great quality and
a reduced level. Like those foam air plugs don't work
(29:16):
great and the quality of the sound that comes through
is horrible. I even went to an audiologist and got
specially fitted ear plugs. You know, they esquirted foam in
my ear and molded them to my ear. They were
they were expensive and they didn't work. But the air
pod pro gotta be pro two's will blow you away.
(29:41):
They are so so unbelievable. And they even come with
different sized a little rubber ear stoppers. That stopper is
not the correct phrase, but you know what I mean.
And they on the phone, they give you a hearing
test on the phone to help you decide which is
(30:01):
the perfect size to create the best seal for you.
And as a bonus, this is this is something that's
a little more advanced. If you go on an airplane,
you can buy a little dongle, a little thing that
plugs in where you would plug in your headphones on
the airplane, and if you put it on complete cancelation,
(30:25):
most of the airplane sound goes away, and you can
listen to movies with Bluetooth using that little device you
plug in to the back of the seat where you wore,
plug in the headphones, and it's paradise. You can't hear
the plane at all. You'll say to yourself, I can't
believe this plane is even flying. It doesn't have any engines.
Then you realize, oh my god, I have these these
(30:47):
these air pods, and you hear the movie crystal clear,
and you don't have to have it so loud because
there's not it's not battling the plane sounds planes.
Speaker 3 (30:55):
That's a really good point. And you know it sounds
like we're doing a commercial for AirPods pro two. But
they also are considered a medical hearing device, and you
can take an audiogram like an as if you were
going to an audiologist, test on it with your phone
and see what your hearing loss is and it will
calibrate to your hearing need. So if you're wondering what
(31:15):
it would be like to have hearing aids, you can
test it with an air prob. They're not exactly, you know,
shape they're similar in price to a low model hearing
aid that you can buy over the counter. I also
want to recommend that you get an app on your
phone to be a decibel reader, a decibel meter, because
you'd be surprised how loud things are. They can harm
(31:37):
your hearing. For a five decibels for fifteen minutes can
harm your hearing. There are other things like a blast.
You know, it goes way higher than that and even
though it's short, it can really hurt your hearing. But
for example, at that movie that I went to, I
took my desc bol meter out and looked at it
and sure enough it went up to into the nineties
and in spurts because of the race cars. So the
(32:00):
hearing damage the potential for us everywhere, and you should
be particular and hearing and New Hampshire hears. We're also
trying to say, hey, maybe we should look at why
everything's so loud. You know, why is it so loud?
Maybe that's part of the problem too. Bradley. You did
ask about the phone, and you know the different things
you can do. You can do on your phone. You
(32:21):
can have someone speak in it and it turns into text,
so you can just read if you're having trouble understanding
someone for some reason, like how Jamie called she's a
sign language interpreter, and you know, if you're not to
that point where you know that at least someone can
speak in it and you can see what they're saying
to you via text. On your phone has other accessibility
(32:45):
options too, but one of the nice things you can
do when you're on zoom, let's say, on your computer,
is make sure you enable the close captioning so you
can see what's happening, what people are saying all along
in real time, which is very helpful when you're just
missing a word or two and you just want to
look down and say, oh, that's what they said so
you can continue on with your meeting or whatever you're doing.
Speaker 2 (33:06):
All right, we better take it one break and have
one more segment with Amy Adams some more gizmos and
gadgets and ideas to help mitigate your situation with potential
hearing loss on WBZ.
Speaker 1 (33:20):
It's Night Side with Dan Ray on WBZ Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2 (33:26):
I'm Brad the Jay for Dan. We're talking with Amy
Evans trying to help you with your hearing. If you
have some hearing loss, there are solutions, of course, go
to the doctor and all, but there are things you
can do in addition to that to mitigate your situation
in real life, and they're all on the website Amy's website.
(33:47):
It's NH. Let me find it again. You tell them
what it is.
Speaker 3 (33:51):
Okay, it's Nhhere's dot org. So New Hampshire heres dot org.
Speaker 2 (33:55):
NH, Here's dot org. What you are to do is
go right now if you're hear the computer and punch
that in and stick it in the favorites bar or
when you need it. There's a section called Gizmo's what's
it called. It's called gizmos and gadgett. Yeah, and this
is a real truth of good advice. And I'll just
(34:18):
zip through them and you can comment on them after
I've zipped through them. But on your iPhone you can
use your microphones on an iPhone to help hear someone clearly.
There are things called hearing loops which I don't understand,
and maybe you can talk to them about it in
a moment. FM and infrared systems as well as personal
amplifiers and when it gets to zoom or TV. Excuse me, zoom,
(34:41):
you can turn on the captions. You just talk about
that a little. And then something I find super helpful
is when it comes to TV, a sound bar, unfortunately,
is a must. TV is a super cheap now, but
a lot of them don't have speakers up front. They
have speakers in the back, which points to the wall
and reflects, and it's really bad for hearing dialogue. So
try a soundbar. And one thing great about a soundbar
(35:04):
is you can control the amount of bass. There's actually
setting on a lot of them called dialogue, so you
can hear the dialogue better. There are personal amplifiers, smart TV,
Bluetooth hearing aids. In movie theaters they must offer you
personal captioning devices as glasses that display captions. So I've
(35:27):
gone through with an overview. Now you could drill down
on We have about five minutes for you to drill
down on your favorite ones of those amy.
Speaker 3 (35:34):
Okay, perfect. Well. Also I want to recommend people also
enable captions on your TV. That really helps too. So
the hearing loops, the loops you were talking about. There's
a picture on the website and it's just a blue
square with an ear on it and if you ever
see those, and unfortunately we don't see those that much
(35:56):
in the United States, but they're all over Europe and
they've been there since naineteen already. What it is, it's
a room that's wired so that people who have hearing
aids or headphones that are enabled, they can hear the
microphone from a speaker directly into their hearing aids. So
when you hear through your hearing aid, it's actually getting help.
(36:17):
It's helping you with the sounds that you're having trouble
struggling struggling with hearing. So if it goes right to
your hearing aid versus from the speaker on the wall,
you can hear it better.
Speaker 2 (36:27):
Movie theaters or lecture halls and things like that.
Speaker 3 (36:29):
They do, they do, yes, they do, but like I said,
in the United States, it's just really flim pickens. But fortunately,
coming down the pike really by the end of this
decade will be something called or CAST and that's low
energy bluetooths. And so for hearing loops, you're in one
room and it's finite and it can only you know,
(36:50):
if the room is only so big and only so
many people can fit in it. But with or cast.
Since it's a low energy, it's going to be more
like tuning into a website or an FM station when
you're somewhere and the places that you will be where
it will be most helpful. Even if you're wearing AirPod
pro tubes, you can be at a baseball game and
(37:12):
the announcer can go right to your device in your
ear versus you hearing over a loudspeaker. You've probably been
in the airport where it says, you know, flight number
two go to Gate L and you miss it. You
have to go over and read on the screen what
it was. When you have in the airports will be
or cast enabled, you'll be able to hear those things
(37:33):
because you'll be able to tune into that station via
your phone. The TVs that are muted up on the
walls at the airport or other places, you'll be able
to tune to that station. So a lot of people
will want to do that with whatever hearing device they have,
whether it's a hearing aid or an AirPod two or
another kind of pod.
Speaker 2 (37:52):
Okay, and there is much more. We're kind of out
of time, and so the important thing right now is
few too jot this down. N H here's dot dot org.
NH here's dot org. Amy, our guest, is a strategic
planner for uh NH Here's dot org and a board
member of Northeast Stephan Hard of Hearing Association. Thank you
(38:14):
so much for doing the important work you do. I
think it gives a lot of hope for people who
are kind of kind of slogging along with the reduced
quality of life because they're not hearing as well as
they can. So thank you so much for coming by.
Speaker 3 (38:29):
Thank you for having me. Bradley, thank you so much,
and I wish everyone good luck when they're hearing their
hearing journey.
Speaker 2 (38:36):
Now we will say goodbye to Amy. And a special note.
We've talked about the hearing protection now offered by AirPod
pro twos. It's important if you decide to get them,
get the pro twos, not just AirPod twos, AirPod pro twos.
And thank you to Jeff Berlin, a radio and radio colleague,
(38:59):
for turning me on to them. Coming up tomorrow we
have Craig Fitzgerald, a fan favorite. We're going to talk
about how much cars cost, why they cost so much,
and what you can do about it. And on Wednesday
it is the triumphant return of Michael Coyn, Dean of
the Massachusetts School of Law, and we are going to
talk about things like the Karen Reids civil suits coming up,
(39:22):
and much more that'll be here the next couple of
days on WBZ News Radio ten thirty
It's night Side with Dan Ray on WBZ Coston's news Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Yes, WBZ News Radio ten thirty night Side with Dan
Ray and Bradley j for Dan. Thank you again to
Peter Wolf for joining us. That's a big, big deal
and the book is waiting on the Moon, Artist poets,
strif scripts and goddesses. And also while I'm out of
thanks to Chatchi the Print, Breakfast with the Beatles, Jock
and BCN Junk for helping set this up as well
(00:27):
as thank you to David Bieber for being instrumental in
having that all go so smoothly. Thank you very much.
And if you missed the Peterwolf interview, all is not
lost because it is accessible on demand at Nightside on
Demand dot com. That's Nightside on Demand dot Com. Now
most of you have been exposed to loud noises. I
(00:49):
know I have. Whether it's a factory noises which are
really loud, construction noise. Maybe you work at the South
Postal Annex with all those noisy postal machines, traffic noise,
airplane noise, or maybe like me, dozens or hundreds of
rock concerts, or maybe you're even in a band and
(01:10):
you're standing right beside the drummer whacking that snare drum
bang bang right in your ear, gig after gig. My
friend Steve Kilroy has been a drummer all his life.
He's on tour now, He's always on tour with various bands.
I don't see how he can hear anything I say
to you. Your ears ring? He goes yup. Than good dude,
(01:33):
how do you live like that? Well, we're going to
talk a little bit about hearing loss, but that's kind
of negative, so I'd rather position it as talk about
hearing gain. Are he gaining your hearing and improving your
quality of life? And you may not even realize that
you can't hear because it's kind of gradual. So we
(01:54):
do have a guest who's an expert on all this,
and I'm really thrilled to have Amy Amy Evans with
us here, who is the a board member for the
Northeast Deaf and Hard of Hearing Services Inc. And strategic
planner for New Hampshire Here's Initiative.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
Hi Amy, Hello Bradley.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
Well, it's great to have you with us. Before we
get started into what you do, tell us a little
bit about you.
Speaker 3 (02:21):
Well, I am a board member at Northeast Stephen hard
of hearing in this capacity. And also I have developed
one of their initiatives which really didn't occur to anybody
until I was brought onto the board as a person
with sort of mild hearing loss. I also am an author,
and I act in commercials and I have four children,
(02:43):
so quite a nice, rich lifestyle.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
That's nice. Now I know I have hearing loss because
A I know I must be the audiologist told me,
and see, I can't hear some stuff, so it's pretty
likely I have hearing loss. And my situation, it's the
dialogue in the TV. It's kind of hard to see
say it's so hard to hear, so I'm asking what
(03:07):
do they say? What did they say? I think that's
one of the one of the first things. And also
asking people to repeat what was that? You know, it
used to be you could hear your partner yelling to
you from the kitchen and understand it, and now you're
kind of like what you just wait till they come
in the room. So how many people have some sort
of hearing losses, especially in the older demos, Well.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
It's very very common. It's more common actually than hearing
loss in general, it's more common in diabetes. So about
forty eight million Americans or more have some form of
hearing loss. You can go all the way to being
deaf or having just trouble understanding speech and noise, for example,
when you're at a bar or you're you know, at
(03:53):
a restaurant. You don't necessarily have hearing loss per se
as we think of it, but you're you are able
to distinguish sounds like you could when you were younger.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
So if you say one in, it's about one in
six Americans have some sort of hearing loss. If you
get into the older demo, then it must be like
one in like half.
Speaker 3 (04:16):
Right, Well, it goes up, and it keeps going up
until you're about ninety, and then most people have it
when they're ninety. But what happens is, as you said,
it's very gradual, so you don't really notice it yourself.
Other people might point it out to you, like you
you know, you can send what too many times to me,
and this is because it's gradual, and the sounds that
(04:39):
you don't hear are soft sounds like the letter P
or F or f, so you cannot You can mix
up words like peach or beach. You might not be
able to tell of someone speaking to you. But yes,
many many old people, older people, I should say. And
when I say when I say old, Bradley, I don't
(04:59):
really mean old. It's kind of like when you get
you start to need reading glasses and people are very
sort of embarrassed about it, and they and they put
them on the other nose and they take them off
right away. The same thing has happen to the rest
of your body, and you are getting older. So inside
of your ear, and I'm I'm not an audiologist, I
just want to make that clear, but I had to
(05:20):
learn a lot in writing this website that I developed,
which we'll talk about later. But in your ear there
are these little hairs called stereocilia, and on the outside,
when it starts rolling around in your cook let's like
a shell. They get the outside ones get a lot
of use. And those are those sounds that I mentioned
that you're starting not to be able to hear. So
(05:42):
it stands to reason as you get older, things get
used more. They're gonna get worn down. They're going to
get mowed down with really loud noises. But gradually, over
time you just start to hear some parts of speech
or some parts of certain noises that you can't distinguish
speech anymore, which is really import but that's not the
most important thing about getting or hearing loss or you're
(06:05):
hearing diagnosed. Your brain is not working as hard if
you can't hear things. So when you're saying you know
you have hearing loss, Bradley, I hope that you have
hearing aids and you're getting it addressed, because in order
for your brain to work to a high function, it
has to hear all of the sounds that are out there,
(06:25):
Otherwise it starts to atrophy. You know, you can't hear things,
but your brain is hearing things that you and I
aren't even paying attention to right now. It's paying attention
to little crinkles and pops and things behind us that
we're ignoring in a conversation, but in the background, it
keeps your brain active and strong.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
So does that include parts of the brain that are
not involved with hearing. Does that make the math part
of my brain dumber because my brain is atrophying in general?
Speaker 3 (06:56):
I can't really answer that, but it kind of makes sense,
doesn't it. It's kind of like if you. If you're exercising,
your whole body feels good, and you're working all your systems,
all your muscles, even though you might just be saying
I'm just focusing on one, but you're standing up or
you're sitting or whatever, You're using muscles, you're getting fresh air.
(07:16):
You know, all these things are so important. So we're
a system. So I imagine in your brain that must
be similar. I can't answer that definitively, but it does
sound to me like that would make sense. Your brain
is going to attrophy as you age anyway, so why
accelerate that by not hearing as much as you can?
Speaker 2 (07:33):
You know, your brain is like an automobile. Actually the
body is a lot like an automobile with its systems,
but the brain is I mean, excuse me. The body
is like an automobile. You can keep the engine running,
but other stuff kind of breaks down, like do you
need new brake pads and you need you know, your
shocks go and this stuff. And your body's kind of
like that that can keep the thing going. But the
(07:54):
part exactly the parts, you know, they're never the same.
They burn out. But happily there's we will get into
the happy part of the story because there's a lot
of technology available now. It's really much better than it
used to be to help you here. And there's something
about hearing is that I did not understand that we'll
(08:15):
find out later too that before quickly, before we take
a break, tell me about the Northeast Deaf and Heart
of Hearing Services.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
Well, it's a nonprofit organization. We're based in New Hampshire
and we are dedicated to serving everybody in New Hampshire
but the Death and Heart of Hearing community through empowerment,
education and advocacy. So what we tried to do is
it's mostly a contract based organization at this point, so
in schools or if you need to have a sign
(08:46):
language interpreter, if you go to a doctor's appointment, they
would facilitate that. But when I was on the board,
I noticed that we were doing primarily that kind of
service to our community, but that we were neglecting a
giant population, which is a population them I'm a part of,
just a really mildly hard of hearing person from pressecutives,
which is what happens to you as you get older.
(09:08):
So I encourage them to kind of address this group
of people who really aren't getting any help at all.
And what happens is you start to not go to
things anymore. You can't understand the the you know, the
dialogue in a movie, so you stay home. You can't
understand you're a partner in a restaurant, so you stay home.
And this is part of the trend towards dementia. So
(09:30):
we have answers for you. Though it's not all bad,
but if you don't address it, it can be very bad.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
And the answers are coming up after a break, before
the break strategic you're a strategic planner at New Hampshire.
Here is initiative and I check their website out extensively
and we'll get into some of the things they have there,
but can you give me an overview before we get
into it in depth after the break?
Speaker 3 (09:52):
Sure? And that's my baby's. That was my idea that
we needed to have a place for people who do
not identify as hard of hearing. They're not in the
population that I mentioned before that our our organization serves.
So it's just people who want to continue their lives
as they've been living them, but they're challenged by hearing now,
so they don't really want to participate in any you know,
(10:16):
necessarily support groups or they're certainly not using sign language interpreters.
So I developed this website so there's a place for
anybody to can go to learn more about hearing laws,
what to do about it, and then how to make
life easier if you do have.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
It, okay, And about the word hard of hearing, this
is the following is meant to be humorous and in
no way put down anything to do with heart of hearing.
But it's a strange old timey turn heard of hearing,
he's hard of hearing, because if you can't sing, you're
not heard of singing. If you can't, yeah, i'm hard
(10:52):
of running. I can't run.
Speaker 3 (10:53):
Well, good for you. That's a very good point. It
is quite quite old fashioned sounding and I can't.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
And I think if I were the boss of everything,
I would change the name because there's a lot of
baggage associated with a negative baggage from the past, exactly
which I guess.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
We'll put it on a website.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
With the word deaf, deaf and hard of hearing are
these negative terms. It's got to be a better phrase.
We could talk about that and much more. And if
you if you have any insights on this. Folks, if
you think or know that you are suffering some hearing
loss and you have questions or you want to know
what to do about it, please do join us. You're
(11:33):
now welcome to join us at six one seven two
five four ten thirty six one seven, two five four,
ten thirty on WBZ News Radio ten thirty.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
Night Side with Dan Ray on WBZ Boston's news Radio.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
That's correct. I'm Bradley Jay and for Dan on night Side,
and we're with Amy Evans, board member of Northeast Deaf
and Heart of Hearing Services INK and strategic planner of
New Hampshire. Here's initiative which is quite a thing with
lots and lots of solutions on that, and we'll talk
about that later. Amy. We do have some folks that
want to check in and ask a question or make
a comment. Are you ready? I am okay, Amy in Chelmsford, Hello, Amy, Hi.
Speaker 4 (12:17):
It's Jamie.
Speaker 3 (12:18):
I was just calling. I have a.
Speaker 4 (12:21):
Heart of hearing mother. She's been hard of hearing her
whole entire life. I'm also simula interpreter and I also
experienced like the traditional prosecutes in my family with my
grandfather as a result of diabetes, and so I just
wanted to hear more about your thoughts about the stigma
(12:44):
associated with the label. I heard the host. I know
it's not Dan Alivisa talking about the stigma with being
hard of hearing when you're stuck in between worlds. In
my experience from what I seen and I've experienced the
death community, which is just to point it out, bradly,
(13:05):
death is actually capital D death, which is an awesome term.
It you could be called death and dumb. But I
wanted to hear her thoughts about what does it mean
right now? What is the point of all of this
for heart of hearing people, and like does she plan
on renaming that and relabeling that, and like what are
your plans for connecting with people that are stuck in
(13:27):
between worlds where they can't use the sign language interpreter
They didn't learn those skills as a kid. Maybe it's
not just prostitutis. It could be anything across the ganet.
But what are your thoughts on that?
Speaker 2 (13:38):
Yeah, and I agree, I just want to say that
nothing there is there is a stigma. Nothing says old
person like people perceive that they don't want to be
perceived as old because nothing says old person like hearing it.
But that's not necessarily the truth now with the new equipment.
But can you address that, Amy Evans?
Speaker 3 (13:59):
Sure? Sure, and thanks for calling, Jamie. I really appreciate that,
and that you're an advocate for the deaf community and
you know you understand the spectrum of hearing so and
you and you actually sign so you're right, it's a tip.
It's a different world, it's a different language, is a culture,
and when you are not in that culture your entire life,
(14:22):
and suddenly you are stressed and strained to try to
understand speech. Again, you don't even sometimes aren't even aware
of what you're not hearing besides speech. But we'll talk
about speech. What we are trying to do in your
Hampshire hears and we just are doing in a Hampshire
because that's where I'm based. But it's a small state
and I live in Comfort, you know, relatively small area.
(14:45):
We thought if we could do this micro version of
really empowering people to understand that it's really more about communication,
and our website says that on the top we're about comprehension,
communication and community. So I want people to understand that
this is a shared responsibility. When you have a message
(15:06):
to give to someone, you want them to understand your message.
So if you set yourself off the success to be
understood that it helps the person who's trying to hear. Also,
so speakers should always have light on their face. They
shouldn't have a window behind them if they're making a presentation,
Obviously speak clearly and face someone face to face. For
(15:29):
people who are hard of hearing in the giant spectrum
of part of hearing and are not signing, but can
hear either you know, with the hearing aid or buy
these methods of making someone more easily understood. It goes
a long way, and we're trying to do other things
and conquered by talking to restaurant owners. You know, there
(15:51):
used to be I remember this when they had a
no smoking section. A giant part of a restaurant would
be you know, cordon dof for smokers. It was ridiculus
because smoke who's wafting through the air and everything. But
we could do that for a quiet corner of a restaurant.
We could disable the speaker over the table so people
can understand each other and during COVID, we had plexiglass
(16:13):
around booths and some places still do. That really helps
to hear in these situations. So, Jamie, to your question,
we're trying to really sort of say, it's more about
communicating how we can help people understand the message that
we really want people to understand. So then the responsibility
is not so much on the person trying to hear.
(16:34):
We're going to talk later. I think about all the
technology that can help people who are struggling to hear,
and there's a lot of it.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
Thanks Jamie, appreciate it. That's an excellent call and an
excellent response for our excellent guest Gene and Everett. Do
you have something to share with us?
Speaker 5 (16:53):
Yes, Hi, good evening, Thank you. This is a good subject.
I had a hearing test finally earlier this year because
I was noticing that I can't hear as good. I
can't hear things I used to hear from a certain distance,
(17:13):
Like my radio is on my counter and my table
is four steps away. But at night, when I turned
the radio on to hear your show or Dan Ray's show,
I have to put my little transistor on the r
table so I can hear clearer. So I don't miss
something I can't hear as good four steps away. Now,
(17:36):
my hearing tests showed that I did have some mild
to moderate hearing loss, but there wasn't a real good
This was a specialist in a hospital, but it wasn't
a real good answer for me about what I could
do for this, other than, you know, a brochure that
tells me there's this, that and the other hearing aid,
(17:56):
but you know, not really you know, giving me a
real in depth information. Where should I go to look
at these things? Does Medicare pay for anything? Probably not.
Does my other insurance pay for anything, probably not that
kind of thing. So I'm left with knowing I have it,
which I knew anyway, but there's no answer for me
(18:17):
what to do for it. And I'm not a wealthy person.
I worked all my life and I'm just a you know,
retired person at this point, trying to pay my guests
and electric pills.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
For Gene and Everett.
Speaker 3 (18:36):
Jane, thank you for sharing your story. If you have
mild to moderate hearing loss, that's pretty pretty significant. It's
a pretty significant impact on your life. So I would
recommend you go to an audiologist. If you go to
an audiologist. They will give you more tests. It's not
that expensive an appointment generally.
Speaker 5 (18:57):
I actually had a specialist hearing steffist that did the
hearing test and had the had the specialist doctor Audio,
whatever his name was. He was a hearing doctor. He
looked at my ears and he read the report from
the hearing test. I had the whole hearing test, every
single bit of it. That's when they found out I
(19:19):
had Mount Tomnit And did.
Speaker 3 (19:22):
They recommend that you get hearing aids?
Speaker 5 (19:25):
Well, he said that I could, but he didn't. He
didn't say He didn't really tell me anything about where
to go, how I can get it. He's handed me
a brochure. You know, do you feel conformation online?
Speaker 3 (19:40):
Would you feel comfortable going and reading a website? Because
this is why why we didn't.
Speaker 5 (19:46):
I was, yeah, I'd like to find a place where
I can get more information. And I have no idea
what they cost or what's good or bad. But I
know my sister in law bought something very inexpensive and
it fell apart in her ear and she had a
problem with her Ian went to the doctor and they
found a piece of it. So I'm not going with
the very very cheap version of whatever it is. But
(20:08):
I'd like to find out what they have and how
I find out more about it and maybe get one.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
Sounds like yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (20:17):
For her, right, Yeah, it's called NA the letters N H, A,
P R S so New Hampshire. Here's dot org and
on that you'll find all the answers to the questions
you just told me. And I also want you to
know that just recently, well a couple of years ago,
used to have to go to an audiologist to get
(20:38):
hearing it, but now you can buy them over the counter,
and there is a big range of prices and also functions,
So I don't know if I can some of the
big delate words.
Speaker 5 (20:51):
Do they fit you forward, like somehow they sit you
down and try them out?
Speaker 3 (20:56):
Or yes, if you go to an audiologist going to
have a lot higher service level. But oftentimes the over
the counter hearing aids have websites and they'll help you,
usually through your phone. They fit it so they'll calibrate
it to the degree it can through your phone, But
go to a website firston you'll learn a little bit
(21:18):
more about hearing loss and how important a hearing aid is.
And it does describe the different kinds of hearing aids
there are great.
Speaker 5 (21:25):
Can you give me that website again a little slower.
Speaker 3 (21:28):
Sure, it's the letters n H, H E A R
s SO New Hampshire hears dot org org.
Speaker 5 (21:40):
Okay, I'll definitely pop on there and read as much
as I can about it. And I appreciate it. This
was a great topic tonight and I appreciate you being
on and everybody. I appreciate it. Thanks so much, Thanks
to you.
Speaker 3 (21:55):
Have a good night, Thank you very much.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Now after the break, we'll get into some of the
the solutions that exist, like one's even in your phone.
And also there's a real good preventative measure that in
possibly in your iPods, which I use. It saves my
hearing a lot. It's life saver. We'll share that and
much more. There's so much, so much good news, so
(22:21):
much information that's helpful on New Hampshire, the New Hampshire
Here's initiative and what's the actual website New Hampshire Here's.
Speaker 3 (22:28):
What Yeah, NH heres dot org and h.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
Here's h G A RS dot org. More with Amy
Evans on this topic. In a moment on WBZ.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
You're on the Night Side with Dan Ray on WBZ
Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
It is night Time with Dan Ray. Bradley j for Dan,
and we're speaking about hearing hearing loss, or more importantly,
hearing regaining. Now we're going to get to the good
news and talk about technologies that exist, and some of
them are available without going anywhere, Some are available on
your phone, and some are available without going to the doctor. Certainly.
(23:10):
Our guest is Amy Evans, who is a board member
of the Northeast Deaf and Heart of Hearing Services Incorporated
and Strategic Planning for nh HERES, the nh Here's Initiative.
So let's get into some the things that are available
to help people out. I guess first the things and
there are a lot of them, and they're all on
the New Hampshire Here's Initiative website. But I want to
(23:34):
go through them, and we'll do it in brisk fashion
because there's so many of them. First of all, here, actually,
I do want to talk about hearing aids first. Hearing
aids aren't just amplifiers. Hearing aids are calibrated for your
(23:56):
particular hearing loss. So say that there's a graph of
where your hearing loss is, they can see that and
calibrate the hearing the hearing aids so that it fills
in only the parts you're missing, which is really important.
And I think it might be related to tenetus because
a doctor told me that tenetists are ringing in your
(24:18):
ears in some cases is simply your brain filling in
noise in those gaps that you can no longer hear.
And I'm wondering if a hearing aid does fill in
those gaps, does your tenetists go away?
Speaker 3 (24:33):
Well? For tenetus or some people say tonight is it's
either way. It's a phantom sound, so it's not a
real sound that other people would hear. It's literally all
in your head. So when you get a hearing aid,
you're focusing on other sounds that are out in the
world that you are not hearing because you have hearing loss,
(24:54):
and it's damping up your attention to those sounds, so
you start to just ignore the phantom sound and that's
you know, there are also oral training and things that
can help you kind of calm down about it, you know,
make it your friend. It's there, you know, ways to
just not have you hear it so acutely that it
drives you insane, which sometimes people feel like that, and.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
Things exacerbate at least my mild mild mild senatus are dehydration, overtiredness,
and caffeine that for some reason, those things make it worse. Happily,
as soon as I went to one concert and I
don't know, fifteen years ago and it was so loud,
(25:40):
I said, that's it. I am not messing with my
hearing anymore because I didn't want to get ringing in
the ears. And so I must admit I don't go
to loud concerts anymore. I've been to a million anyway,
done that, been there. I don't need to go and
risk my hearing. I'll go to more singer song writer
ey type of things are quieter shows. Now there are
(26:04):
things other than hearing. Oh back to hearing aids. What
do they look like now? Are they inconspicuous?
Speaker 3 (26:11):
Well, let's just talk about that a little bit bradly,
because you did say you felt it was you know,
it's kind of scrains. You're old if you're wearing a
hearing aid. But now that we've learned about hearing, what
untreated hearing loss means to your brain, you're the smart person.
Just wearing a hearing aid because the other people who
are ignoring it, their brains are actraphying and they're sliding
(26:33):
into the possibility of dementia and also depression and falls
and all these other things. And regarding the concerts really
quickly too, you know you can where as you know, musician,
hearing aids help a lot with keeping the noise volume
down so you don't damage yourself your ears. But I
just went to a movie the other night, f One
with Brad Pitt, and it was really loud. So I
(26:58):
put in my AirPods too, in the you know the
function where it's a transparent thing, you had noise cancelation.
Rather I could hear everything fine. And one of the
things that I wanted to tell you about it's not
on your phone, but if you go to a movie,
you can request a subtitle device and it goes in
your cup holder and it's say, I've got a gooseeneck
(27:19):
on it, and then it goes right underneath the screen.
So what I did at that particular movie is there
was a lot of dialogue that normally I might not
be able to understand that well, I read the captions
and then I protected my ears from the loud cars
and F one Formula one cars with my AirPods too.
So I had this, you know, menu of things that
(27:41):
was going to work for me to have this wonderful time,
to be able to go somewhere. You can do it
in a concert too. You can we're hearing protection like
AirPods too, or it can break through if you have
to talk to somebody, you know, make it work for
you whatever, and stay in the game, like, don't go
to things because you don't have any technology to protect you.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
I'm gonna drill down on the air pods. Two things.
So folks, as you know, Apple makes AirPods. They made
regular AirPods, then the next generation, but then they made
the AirPods Pro line and on Apple AirPod pros, when
you get them synced up with your phone, you go
to you open your Bluetooth and then you hit AirPods
(28:25):
Pro and you have a menu of choices and you
can cancel out all noise, and my god, it cancels
out probably ninety six percent of sound. You can barely
hear anything. But that's I mean, that's not fun for me.
Then there's another one called adaptive adaptive canceling that's the
(28:53):
one I use. And depending on the loudness, it kicks
in more more. The louder it is, it kicks in more.
And you can go to a concert with using the
adaptive cancelation mode and you hear a great quality and
a reduced level. Like those foam air plugs don't work
(29:16):
great and the quality of the sound that comes through
is horrible. I even went to an audiologist and got
specially fitted ear plugs. You know, they esquirted foam in
my ear and molded them to my ear. They were
they were expensive and they didn't work. But the air
pod pro gotta be pro two's will blow you away.
(29:41):
They are so so unbelievable. And they even come with
different sized a little rubber ear stoppers. That stopper is
not the correct phrase, but you know what I mean.
And they on the phone, they give you a hearing
test on the phone to help you decide which is
(30:01):
the perfect size to create the best seal for you.
And as a bonus, this is this is something that's
a little more advanced. If you go on an airplane,
you can buy a little dongle, a little thing that
plugs in where you would plug in your headphones on
the airplane, and if you put it on complete cancelation,
(30:25):
most of the airplane sound goes away, and you can
listen to movies with Bluetooth using that little device you
plug in to the back of the seat where you wore,
plug in the headphones, and it's paradise. You can't hear
the plane at all. You'll say to yourself, I can't
believe this plane is even flying. It doesn't have any engines.
Then you realize, oh my god, I have these these
(30:47):
these air pods, and you hear the movie crystal clear,
and you don't have to have it so loud because
there's not it's not battling the plane sounds planes.
Speaker 3 (30:55):
That's a really good point. And you know it sounds
like we're doing a commercial for AirPods pro two. But
they also are considered a medical hearing device, and you
can take an audiogram like an as if you were
going to an audiologist, test on it with your phone
and see what your hearing loss is and it will
calibrate to your hearing need. So if you're wondering what
(31:15):
it would be like to have hearing aids, you can
test it with an air prob. They're not exactly, you know,
shape they're similar in price to a low model hearing
aid that you can buy over the counter. I also
want to recommend that you get an app on your
phone to be a decibel reader, a decibel meter, because
you'd be surprised how loud things are. They can harm
(31:37):
your hearing. For a five decibels for fifteen minutes can
harm your hearing. There are other things like a blast.
You know, it goes way higher than that and even
though it's short, it can really hurt your hearing. But
for example, at that movie that I went to, I
took my desc bol meter out and looked at it
and sure enough it went up to into the nineties
and in spurts because of the race cars. So the
(32:00):
hearing damage the potential for us everywhere, and you should
be particular and hearing and New Hampshire hears. We're also
trying to say, hey, maybe we should look at why
everything's so loud. You know, why is it so loud?
Maybe that's part of the problem too. Bradley. You did
ask about the phone, and you know the different things
you can do. You can do on your phone. You
(32:21):
can have someone speak in it and it turns into text,
so you can just read if you're having trouble understanding
someone for some reason, like how Jamie called she's a
sign language interpreter, and you know, if you're not to
that point where you know that at least someone can
speak in it and you can see what they're saying
to you via text. On your phone has other accessibility
(32:45):
options too, but one of the nice things you can
do when you're on zoom, let's say, on your computer,
is make sure you enable the close captioning so you
can see what's happening, what people are saying all along
in real time, which is very helpful when you're just
missing a word or two and you just want to
look down and say, oh, that's what they said so
you can continue on with your meeting or whatever you're doing.
Speaker 2 (33:06):
All right, we better take it one break and have
one more segment with Amy Adams some more gizmos and
gadgets and ideas to help mitigate your situation with potential
hearing loss on WBZ.
Speaker 1 (33:20):
It's Night Side with Dan Ray on WBZ Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2 (33:26):
I'm Brad the Jay for Dan. We're talking with Amy
Evans trying to help you with your hearing. If you
have some hearing loss, there are solutions, of course, go
to the doctor and all, but there are things you
can do in addition to that to mitigate your situation
in real life, and they're all on the website Amy's website.
(33:47):
It's NH. Let me find it again. You tell them
what it is.
Speaker 3 (33:51):
Okay, it's Nhhere's dot org. So New Hampshire heres dot org.
Speaker 2 (33:55):
NH, Here's dot org. What you are to do is
go right now if you're hear the computer and punch
that in and stick it in the favorites bar or
when you need it. There's a section called Gizmo's what's
it called. It's called gizmos and gadgett. Yeah, and this
is a real truth of good advice. And I'll just
(34:18):
zip through them and you can comment on them after
I've zipped through them. But on your iPhone you can
use your microphones on an iPhone to help hear someone clearly.
There are things called hearing loops which I don't understand,
and maybe you can talk to them about it in
a moment. FM and infrared systems as well as personal
amplifiers and when it gets to zoom or TV. Excuse me, zoom,
(34:41):
you can turn on the captions. You just talk about
that a little. And then something I find super helpful
is when it comes to TV, a sound bar, unfortunately,
is a must. TV is a super cheap now, but
a lot of them don't have speakers up front. They
have speakers in the back, which points to the wall
and reflects, and it's really bad for hearing dialogue. So
try a soundbar. And one thing great about a soundbar
(35:04):
is you can control the amount of bass. There's actually
setting on a lot of them called dialogue, so you
can hear the dialogue better. There are personal amplifiers, smart TV,
Bluetooth hearing aids. In movie theaters they must offer you
personal captioning devices as glasses that display captions. So I've
(35:27):
gone through with an overview. Now you could drill down
on We have about five minutes for you to drill
down on your favorite ones of those amy.
Speaker 3 (35:34):
Okay, perfect. Well. Also I want to recommend people also
enable captions on your TV. That really helps too. So
the hearing loops, the loops you were talking about. There's
a picture on the website and it's just a blue
square with an ear on it and if you ever
see those, and unfortunately we don't see those that much
(35:56):
in the United States, but they're all over Europe and
they've been there since naineteen already. What it is, it's
a room that's wired so that people who have hearing
aids or headphones that are enabled, they can hear the
microphone from a speaker directly into their hearing aids. So
when you hear through your hearing aid, it's actually getting help.
(36:17):
It's helping you with the sounds that you're having trouble
struggling struggling with hearing. So if it goes right to
your hearing aid versus from the speaker on the wall,
you can hear it better.
Speaker 2 (36:27):
Movie theaters or lecture halls and things like that.
Speaker 3 (36:29):
They do, they do, yes, they do, but like I said,
in the United States, it's just really flim pickens. But fortunately,
coming down the pike really by the end of this
decade will be something called or CAST and that's low
energy bluetooths. And so for hearing loops, you're in one
room and it's finite and it can only you know,
(36:50):
if the room is only so big and only so
many people can fit in it. But with or cast.
Since it's a low energy, it's going to be more
like tuning into a website or an FM station when
you're somewhere and the places that you will be where
it will be most helpful. Even if you're wearing AirPod
pro tubes, you can be at a baseball game and
(37:12):
the announcer can go right to your device in your
ear versus you hearing over a loudspeaker. You've probably been
in the airport where it says, you know, flight number
two go to Gate L and you miss it. You
have to go over and read on the screen what
it was. When you have in the airports will be
or cast enabled, you'll be able to hear those things
(37:33):
because you'll be able to tune into that station via
your phone. The TVs that are muted up on the
walls at the airport or other places, you'll be able
to tune to that station. So a lot of people
will want to do that with whatever hearing device they have,
whether it's a hearing aid or an AirPod two or
another kind of pod.
Speaker 2 (37:52):
Okay, and there is much more. We're kind of out
of time, and so the important thing right now is
few too jot this down. N H here's dot dot org.
NH here's dot org. Amy, our guest, is a strategic
planner for uh NH Here's dot org and a board
member of Northeast Stephan Hard of Hearing Association. Thank you
(38:14):
so much for doing the important work you do. I
think it gives a lot of hope for people who
are kind of kind of slogging along with the reduced
quality of life because they're not hearing as well as
they can. So thank you so much for coming by.
Speaker 3 (38:29):
Thank you for having me. Bradley, thank you so much,
and I wish everyone good luck when they're hearing their
hearing journey.
Speaker 2 (38:36):
Now we will say goodbye to Amy. And a special note.
We've talked about the hearing protection now offered by AirPod
pro twos. It's important if you decide to get them,
get the pro twos, not just AirPod twos, AirPod pro twos.
And thank you to Jeff Berlin, a radio and radio colleague,
(38:59):
for turning me on to them. Coming up tomorrow we
have Craig Fitzgerald, a fan favorite. We're going to talk
about how much cars cost, why they cost so much,
and what you can do about it. And on Wednesday
it is the triumphant return of Michael Coyn, Dean of
the Massachusetts School of Law, and we are going to
talk about things like the Karen Reids civil suits coming up,
(39:22):
and much more that'll be here the next couple of
days on WBZ News Radio ten thirty
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