On The Job

I wasn’t really looking for a job, but one landed right in my lap, and I thought, “Why not?” So here I am now, a ‘working woman’ (ewww… I don’t like the sound of that!), in my own large, airy office. Nature of the job- designing booklets on hearing aid use and care for persons who use hearing aids (no, we can’t call them ‘hearing aid users’ anymore).

As a part of my job, I had to ‘field test’ the material I developed. That just means I had to talk to a lot of persons who use hearing aids and find out whether the material we’d handed out to them at the time of hearing aid fitting had been useful, and whether they were satisfied with the services provided. In most cases, the answers were yes and yes. But then, there were a few other cases that cast light on the importance of stressing on the more basic issues in hearing aid care that most people would dismiss as ‘common sense’. Here are a couple of those stories.

An old woman had been advised to wear her hearing aid all the time, and not just for important occasions or when she was having a conversation (after the initial period of adjusting to amplification, of course). This was so that she’d be able to listen to all sorts of sounds, and not just speech. It would also help her get used to that annoying new ‘mic’ in her ear. She had also been told to keep her hearing aid nice and dry, and that she should not bathe with it on. But she was supposed to wear it all the time, remember? So guess what she did… She stopped bathing!

Another lady purchased a wonderful new digital hearing aid. With the hearing aid came a box to keep it in, along with a small packet of silica gel to keep the hearing aid dry. The audiologist showed the lady the silica, and told her that the crystals would change colour if they were saturated with moisture. “Just heat them a bit when that happens. The original colour will return, and you can use the crystals again”, said the audiologist.

A couple of weeks later, the lady brought the hearing aid back, saying it had stopped working. “I did exactly as you told me to…I cleaned the mould, I checked the tubing, I replaced the batteries… But this ‘machine’ has just not been the same ever since I microwaved it to dry it…”

I’m wondering if I should add “Do not bake, roast, fry, or in any way heat your hearing aid” to the list of dos and don’ts in hearing aid care….

Suggestions?