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On today’s episode, you’ll hear from Dr. Brian Taylor, who is an audiologist as well as the director of clinical content development at Signia. Brian grew up in Northwest Wisconsin. He is also the author of a textbook titled:
Relationships Centered Communication. During the first half of his career, he worked as a clinical audiologist in EMT practices in the Chicagoland area. He then worked for Sonus which was acquired by a company in Italy called Amplifon. He then spent some time at Unitron, and even moved to Italy for a bit where he worked for The global Amplifon group. Most currently, he is a proud member of the
Signia.
6:00 – There are many stigmas that may get in the way of a consumer’s decision-making process.
Styletto,
Silk, and
Active are all Signia brands that are types of devices that do not look like hearing aids and are ways to eliminate the barrier surrounding such stigmas.
11:00 – One can help fight against such stigma by having a conversation centered around all the positive outcomes that could occur if a patient were to take the next step upon their hearing-aid journey.
16:00 – As a consumer, you should feel comfortable with the professional that you’re working with, you want to make sure that you’re not being rushed and that you feel comfortable to ask questions. Pretty early in the appointment, you want to feel like the trust and rapport building.
18:00 – Avoiding certain places or relying on somebody else to be your communicator are maladaptive behaviors that an individual without a proper hearing device may get accustomed to. Thus, it is crucial to work with a professional that’s going to help you rethink your condition and acquire some better, more productive, kinds of communication behaviors.
21:00 – It is important for a loved one to sit in when a patient meets with their clinician because the loved one can reflect on how the use of hearing aids is not only helping the person wearing them, but also the individual(s) that spends a lot of time with them.
23:00 – Some of the positive outcomes of COVID include more usage of telehealth and remote care. Signia has a telehealth app that was kind of underutilized pre-COVID and now after COVID, a lot more people are comfortable using it.
30:00 – Age does not play a factor in who will and who will not be able to utilize hearing aid technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning.
32:00 – For reassurance, hearing aid data is anonymized data. Also, if somebody doesn’t want their data being shared, it is okay to just turn all those settings off.
35:00 – There is a journey from being unaware of the problem to accepting that you need to do something about it. And that process, if you see a professional, they might be able to speed that process up and help you sooner rather than later. This will prevent problems down the line such as developing depressive symptoms, dementia, or cognitive decline.
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