2018 Wellness Expo

2018 Wellness Expo LINCOLN DAILY NEWS Wednesday, February 21, 2018 Page 31 A lmost 60 years ago grandpa wore a hearing aid. It was sort of mysterious: a big silver box that hung on his chest in a gauzy yellowed pouch with a strap around his neck, underneath his shirt. Coming out of the silver box were two twisted grey wires that went either direction up to big beige colored ear plugs that were in each ear, making him look a little like “the Borg.” No one who saw him could miss that he was wearing a hearing aid. When you spoke to him, he would see you speak and put his finger up to one of the ear plugs and twist it, and loud whistling sounds would come out and scare you, but he didn’t seem to notice the loud screeching whistle. Then he would look at you and you would speak to him again, and it was clear, grandpa couldn’t hear what you were saying even with that huge apparatus hanging on him. Hearing aids have come a long way since grandpa’s day. With advances in circuitry and computer optimized technology, the quality and capability of today’s hearing aids, they really shouldn’t be called hearing aids at all. More accurately and cooler sounding, they can be called “hearing tech.” They are designed to do so much more than merely aid your hearing, and engineers are only getting started with what they might be able to do in the future. First of all, the size of the devices has changed dramatically. Most hearing aids are either hidden completely in the ear canal or tiny and barely discernible, hidden on top of your ear with a tiny clear tube leading into your ear, Hearing tech: It ain’t like grandpa’s hearing aid CONTINUED →