Widex Inteo test drive

Melinda Beck has written in the Wall Street Journal about her experiences with a Widex Inteo aid. It’s an interesting article because it touches on some of the problems that new hearing aid wearers face, such as:

A rush of new sounds: New aid wearers will be hearing many sounds that they haven’t heard for a long time (if ever) – this can be overwhelming to begin with, but as Melinda noted with the rustling crisp packets, it soon becomes background noise.

The telephone: The enemy of many hearing aid wearers. Some phones and hearing aids just don’t play together, with others you have to work out exactly how to hold the phone to your ear to get the best chance of hearing and avoiding feedback. This is particularly true with BTE models that have the microphone above the ear.

Melinda did return the Inteo at the end of her trial but from her closing sentence I think it may not be long before she pays the audiologist another visit.

Getting an earful: Testing a tiny, pricy hearing aid.

Another interesting thing about the article is Melinda’s opening sentence: "Let’s get one thing straight: I’m much too young for a hearing aid." That’s probably written with her tongue firmly in the cheek but I think it does reflect on an attitude that many people have that, unfortunately, means that they will not seek the help they need to correct their hearing loss.