Custom Fit vs Receiver-in-Canal Hearing Aids | Oticon OWN

Hi guys. Cliff Olson, Doctor of Audiology and founder of Applied Hearing Solutions in Phoenix, Arizona. And in this video I'm gonna show you why you should consider a custom hearing aid instead of a receiver and canal hearing aid coming up.

You know that feeling you get when you put on a custom tailored suit or for the ladies a custom tailored dress. Well, if you don't, then you're missing out because there is no better feeling in the world than putting on a piece of clothing that was meant to fit you perfectly. And when it comes to hearing aids, there is no difference. That being said, it is no secret that the most popular hearing aid out there right now is the receiver in canal style that uses a generic one size fits most rubber dome. After all, when it comes to capabilities like Rechargeability, Discreetness, Wireless Connectivity and Programability, it's really hard to beat a receiver in Canal Hearing Aid. But I'm here to tell you that the once dominant custom in the ear hearing aid is starting to make a strong comeback and making individuals with hearing loss think twice about just going with the receiver and Canal hearing aid.

Ultimately, there are several reasons why you may want to consider a custom hearing aid instead of a receiver and canal hearing aid. But before I get into what these are, if you could do me a huge favor and click the like button, it really helps out my channel because it gets these videos in front of a bigger audience. And while you're at it, if you have not yet hit that subscribe button with notification Bell, go ahead and do that as well, because that ensures that you never miss one of my newly released videos and I release multiple new videos every single week. That being said, I really appreciate it and I also appreciate Oticon for sponsoring today's video, but more on them in a little bit. The first reason that you should consider a custom hearing aid is that they now allow you to stream audio directly from your smart device into both of your ears.

All I have to say is welcome to the 21st century where your hearing aids allow you to stay connected all day every day. What started out as a feature that was only available for years inside of a receiver and canal hearing aid has now migrated its way into custom in the ear devices. Wanna listen to music? Just open up your music app and start listening to your favorite song. Wanna listen to an audio book? Open up your Audible app and start streaming your favorite book. You wanna listen to this video, then just open up your YouTube app or your Facebook app and hit the play button. You wanna talk on the phone completely, hands free. Then just click the push button on your custom hearing aid when a phone call comes in and start talking even if your phone is still in your pocket. In fact, this wireless connectivity is so seamless and easy that even individuals without hearing loss are starting to get jealous because you have these hearing aids inside of your ears all the time and have this feature available to you whenever you want.

The second reason you should consider a custom hearing aid instead of a receiver and canal hearing aid is the customizability of the physical fit and the acoustic fit. Custom hearing aids just flat out fit better, just like a custom tailored piece of clothing. They are designed for your specific ear canal anatomy. Sure, you can get a custom ear mold placed on the tip of your receiver and canal hearing aids, but you can have a custom in the ear hearing aid without having to have anything that goes behind your ears. Hearing care professionals can now perform a digital impression of your ears and ear canals using a 3D scanner so they no longer have to shoot putty into your ears to get a high quality impression. And they can digitally upload the scans to the manufacturer instantly so you get your hearing aids quicker. From an acoustic perspective, a custom fit in that your hearing aid can be programmed better to match your hearing loss prescriptive targets using real ear measurement, which will result in better overall hearing performance.

They can do this because your hearing care professional can control the vent size of your custom hearing aid so they can trap in the exact right amount of sound inside of your ear canals. And the better that your hearing care professional can match your hearing loss prescriptive targets, the better you'll perform with your hearing aids, especially in background noise situations, which continues to be the number one concern of individuals with hearing loss. And the third reason you should consider a custom hearing aid instead of a receiver in Canal Hearing aid is the sheer amount of style options like you get with the Oticon Own line of custom hearing aids from Oticon, today's video sponsor, Oticon's lineup of their custom owned devices include an IIC a CIC, an ITC and a Half Shell and Full Shell ITE. If you're looking for invisibility, Oticon has you covered with their invisible in the canal and completely in the canal models of their OWN hearing aids.

Check out how small these invisible in the canal hearing aids are. Even though the Oticon more receiver and canal hearing aids are very hard to see. You literally cannot see the Oticon own IIC hearing aids. Now, if you just have to have wireless connectivity, you can get wireless connectivity with both an Apple device or an Android device with the ITC and both the half Shell and full Shell versions of the ITE hearing aids. But the best part is, is that Oticon was able to incorporate the same great technology that they have inside of the Oticon MORE™ line of receiver and canal hearing aids into their custom line of Oticon OWN hearing aids, including the Deep Neural Network, which is available inside of the Oticon OWN one, Oticon OWN two, and Oticon OWN three technology levels. Now, Oticon is the first hearing aid manufacturer to use a Deep Neural Network to perform Deep Learning so they could train their new Polaris chip.

This allowed Oticon engineers to feed over 12 million different sounds through multiple layers of the deep neural network so we could learn what characteristics of sound made speech, speech, and what characteristics of sound make noise. Noise. Why is this so impressive? Because the Oticon OWN hearing aids do not have to rely on an engineer's limited ability to define the characteristics of sound. This makes the Oticon OWN hearing aids some of the smartest hearing aids on the planet and a very good reason to consider a custom hearing aid for your next device with as good as custom hearing aids are becoming. I would not be surprised if we see customs start to make a resurgence and start pushing the receiver and canal hearing aids down on the list of popularity. However, if my prediction is going to be correct, it's gonna be because you are starting to ask your hearing care professional about custom hearing aids instead of just taking their initial recommendation of a receiver in canal device.

The fact of the matter is most hearing care professionals just automatically default to a Receiver in Canal hearing aid recommendation, and the only way that they would even consider anything else is if you've requested. At the end of the day, if a custom hearing aid has been determined to be appropriate for your configuration and severity of hearing loss, then a custom hearing aid could perform as well or better than a receiver and canal hearing aid for you. So if you're lucky enough to be considered a candidate for a custom hearing aid and those hearing aids have all of the different features that you want, then get ready because just like a custom tailored suit or a custom tailored dress, you could end up with a hearing aid that is absolutely perfect for you. That's it for this video. If you have any questions, leave them in the comment section below. If you like the video, please share it. And if I wanna see other videos just like this one, go ahead and hit that subscribe button. Also, feel free to check on my website HearingUp.com.