What are your new year’s resolutions for 2018? Have you chosen to focus more on your health by eating better, exercising more, and getting in shape? If you’ve resolved to get fit this year, the hearing aid manufacturer Oticon can help you meet your fitness goals! A new hearing aid app will help you get your ears in shape, and it’s a first in hearing technology that we’re all excited about.
There’s an App for That
More than ever before, we rely on apps for everything. From clocks to calculators, budget trackers and maps, and everything in between, our phones make our lives easier. Fitness apps have become extremely popular recently, and many people use them to keep track of fitness goals and get healthy. Fitbit technology, for example, has taken fitness tracking to a whole new level, helping people monitor everything from exercise to sleep.
Oticon has recently announced the launch of their HearingFitness app, an app designed to work with Oticon’s Opn hearing aids to track your hearing health. It monitors hearing aid use, tracks ‘hearing fitness’ and shows how hearing affects overall health and wellness. The HearingFitness app monitors how well you’re hearing, but also tracks other health markers such as sleep patterns, activity, and heart rate, so with one app you can see it all. You’ll be able to see how your hearing aids are impacting not only your hearing, but the rest of your life. “The HearingFitness app helps people with hearing loss understand how their behavior and hearing health habits can influence how effective their treatment is,” said Don Schum, PhD, Vice President of Audiology at Oticon.
The HearingFitness app also exports all recorded data for further analysis, so Oticon can continue to improve their hearing technology, understand even more about hearing aid use and listening patterns, and work to implement new upgrades for the app.
Award-Winning Hearing Aid Technology
The HearingFitness app from Oticon has won a 2018 CES Innovation Award for their remarkable new technology. The app works with Oticon’s Opn Made For iPhone hearing aids, receiving data on sound environments, listening effort, and daily hearing aid use. What makes this app so unique is that it uses this data to provide feedback to Opn hearing aid users on ways to optimize their hearing aid usage, protect their hearing, and maintain healthy listening habits. You’ll easily get your hearing in shape with this handy app. “Hearing plays a huge role in people’s overall health and well-being, and HearingFitness, paired with Opn, encourages routine use of hearing aids to improve hearing and the ability to engage in social settings,” says Schum. Oticon will be at the CES 2018 exhibit in January to show their incredible new design.
BrainHearing Technology at Its Finest
Oticon has long been known for their brain approach to hearing, designing technology to help your brain hear rather than just amplifying sounds for your ears. Together with researchers at the Eriksholm Research Centre, Oticon developed BrainHearing technology that helps your brain process the sounds around you, so you’ll have the brainpower to enjoy social situations without using all your energy straining to hear. This “brain first” approach is a big part of the HearingFitness app, making sure your hearing aids are helping your brain, and your hearing health is in great shape.
Nearly 40 million Americans of all ages have hearing loss, and by the age of 70, half of all seniors are straining to hear. If you’ve made a new year’s resolution to look after your health in 2018, then treating your hearing loss should be at the top of your list. Taking care of your hearing health has a huge impact on your overall health and happiness. Getting your hearing in shape improves your relationships with family and friends by reducing anxiety or depression, keeps your mind active and increases concentration, lowering your risk of dementia, and even safeguards your physical safety by reducing your risk of falling, or getting into an accident.
If you want to do the right thing for your health, call us at Desert Valley Audiology today to schedule a hearing assessment, and let us tell you more about Oticon’s new HearingFitness app to help you get your ears in shape, and enjoy all the sounds of 2018.