Oticon Consumer Seminar
HOME SCREEN - MENU Welcome Let s hear from you BrainHearing Resources The home screen menu has links to four sections: Welcome: Your starting point, featuring a video clip about BrainHearing. Let s hear from you: a series of questions about hearing loss that should set the stage for the BrainHearing presentation by creating a dialog between you and consumers about their hearing needs. BrainHearing : the presentation itself. Resources: a library of images and media that can help supplement your presentation and support consumer follow up. PAGE 2
Welcome>Splash. ANIMATION Display this screen as you introduce yourself and your practice. Tell consumers what s going to happen today, and why it s important: you re going to talk about hearing, how to take care of hearing health, and why it s important for overall health. Hearing challenges can affect anyone, regardless of how old or young you are, where you come from, or where you live. And while it s a serious health problem for you, it can have an even greater impact on your loved ones. PAGE 3
Welcome>BrainHearing TM Technology VIDEO Use this video to set the stage for today s meeting. It s designed to help your audience understand that hearing happens in your brain, not just your ears. Why is this an important idea? Because we re all used to thinking of our ears when we think of hearing. But your brain is what makes meaning out of sound. It helps you understand speech and enjoy music. It also helps you pick out speech in a noisy environment. It helps you focus on someone who s talking to you at a party or in a restaurant. It helps you know which way to look at a soccer game or a tennis match. And it can even save your life by telling you which direction a car or train is coming from, even before you see it. When you understand the important relationship between your brain and your hearing, you ll see why it s important to take care of your hearing health. In other words, you ll see that hearing care is health care, just like watching your weight, your vision, or your blood pressure. PAGE 4
Let s hear from you. Use these 10 questions to help participants articulate their hearing challenges and view them in the context of the BrainHearing model. If they are reluctant to answer at first, prompt them with examples, framing the questions more personally. Take note of what your clients say. Use their responses to these questions to tailor and focus your comments on the BrainHearing presentation that follows. 1. Why are you here today? Use this question to begin the dialog about hearing challenges with participants own examples: Maybe you re here because you find yourself watching TV with captions more often. Anybody? Raise your hand? Or you re not picking up details at business meetings. Anybody have that problem? How about phone calls? Right? Or you re standing in a group at a party and someone s talking to you but you can t keep up? Maybe you re here because your husband or wife, or your son or daughter made you come. Or you re curious about how hearing health affects your life; or about new advances in hearing technology. Any other thoughts? Anybody with a hearing device that s not working as well as it once did? etc. PAGE 5
2. Who first noticed your hearing challenge: you, or someone close to you? Use this question to spark a discussion about how hearing loss happens gradually, over time, and can be so gradual that you don t even notice it. Was it your spouse? A friend? Someone at work? Did you believe it the first time they said something about it? If you re like a lot of people, you weren t the first one to notice that you had a hearing problem, because it s a gradual condition that typically occurs slowly, over a period of time. People are really good at coping with things like this by asking people to repeat themselves, by turning up the sound, even by staying away from situations that challenge their hearing... and they re good at denying that they have a problem. So you may be the last one to figure it out. That s OK. The only way to know for sure is to get your hearing checked. 3. What listening situations are most challenging to you? Use this question to explore the idea that hearing loss affects everyone in a unique way. That s because everyone has a unique lifestyle a unique set of daily experiences and because everyone s brain is unique in the way it perceives sound. Who has trouble in restaurants? That can be a challenge for just about everyone, even with mild hearing loss. How about How about TV? Do you find yourself turning up the volume more and more? Conference calls, or even the regular old phone? Meetings maybe even this one? Conversations with more than one person at a time? Trying to talk to someone at a football game or a Thanksgiving dinner? What about when your spouse says something and he or she s not facing you? Whispering? Or when one of your grandchildren is trying to tell you something from another part of the house? Everybody s challenges are unique, because everybody s hearing is unique. 4. How do you handle difficult listening situations? Use this question to explore the different ways people cope with hearing loss. People are adaptable, and they develop different strategies for compensating. That s the good news. The bad news is that you can be so good at compensating that you may not realize you need hearing help. Raise your hand if you ever said huh? We all do that; some of us more than others. What about looking intently at someone when they re talking to you to try to see what they re saying? Leaning in to hear better? Have you ever turned to your spouse or a friend and asked them, on the side, to repeat what someone else has just said, because everyone else seemed to get it, but you didn t? How about just nodding and smiling and hoping you ll catch up? And what about those times you just don t feel like going somewhere. Is it because, inside, you re afraid you re going to have a hard time keeping up with the conversation? You may not even realize it, unless you think about it. PAGE 6
5. How do you feel after being in a difficult hearing situation for a long time? Use this question to make participants aware of the fatiguing effect of hearing loss on the brain. Try to remember the last time you were in a challenging listening situation. Say it s a party; a really great party with music, and everybody talking loud so they can be heard over the noise. You re trying to talk to your friends, straining to understand what they re saying. How do you feel after an hour or two of that? Tired, right? That s because your brain has actually been doing the hard work of trying to understand speech in a tough environment. It s especially hard if you have hearing loss. The fatigue builds up all day long and you can become exhausted by the end of the night. 6. Have you ever heard a familiar sound, but had a hard time figuring out what it was? Use this question to discuss the role the brain plays in recognizing speech and other sounds, and how hearing loss can impair this ability. Think of all the things you recognize by the sounds they make: Animals. Your pets. Car engines your son s car probably sounds different from your daughter s, right? People s voices. Airplanes going overhead is that a jet or a helicopter? You can tell without looking, most of the time. That s because your brain is busy matching every new sound against all the sounds you ve heard in your life, and telling you what it is. With hearing loss, it can take longer for this to happen because your brain has to work harder to understand the sound. 7. Have you ever had trouble figuring out where a sound comes from? Use this question to explore how your two ears and your brain work together to use sound to locate you in your surroundings and understand speech. Have you ever been birdwatching? If you have, you know that most of the time, you can t really figure out where a bird is unless you hear it sing first. You use the sound to figure out where to point your binoculars, then you can spot the bird. If you re good, you may even know what kind of bird it is before you see it, because you recognize the song it s singing. You can do this because your ears and your brain work together as a system to locate and recognize sounds. This ability can save your life if the sound is coming from a car that s about to run you over in a crosswalk. It also helps you understand conversation by quickly pulling you in to the speaker, especially in a noisy environment. Without it, you can miss the beginning of a sentence, and you may never catch up with what they re saying. PAGE 7
8. Have you ever had trouble following a conversation because of background noise? Use this question to explore the role the brain plays in making meaning of sound and separating relevant sounds from competing noise. Who s been in a business meeting and lost track of the discussion because somebody s phone rang? Who s ever been at a party, trying to keep up, but the music is too loud? Or at the dinner table, missing half of a sentence because the dog started barking? One of the important hearing jobs that your brain does is separating what you want to hear usually conversation from what you don t want to hear. As your hearing gets worse, it s harder for your brain to do this job. Things drop out when the noise butts in. It s not just a case of really loud noise drowning out soft conversation; it s more like the noise is competing for your brain s attention. 9. Have you ever had ringing, buzzing, or some other distracting sound in your ears? by many things, including hearing loss. It happens in your brain, not just your ears. And it can often be treated along with hearing loss. 10. Has your listening challenge ever made you feel isolated from everyday life? Use this question to discuss how hearing loss can lead to feeling isolated, and remind people that they are not alone. Have you ever decided to stay away from a party because trying to keep up with the conversation is just too hard? Or if you re at an event with a lot of talk and noise, do you sometimes find yourself off in a corner by yourself? Struggling to hear can make you feel more and more isolated, and it can change the way you live your life. Studies have shown that this isolation is not healthy in the long term. It s associated with conditions like dementia and depression. But you don t have to live that way. You re not alone: Look at all the other people here today. And you are all taking a positive step: Finding out more about how to care for your hearing health. Use this question to discuss the relationship between tinnitus and hearing loss. Is anyone not familiar with ringing in the ears? The medical name is tinnitus. We ll talk more about it later. It can be caused PAGE 8
BrainHearing These 14 modules tell how the brain turns sound into information that helps us live our lives every day and how BrainHearing from Oticon supports this vital activity. PAGE 9
BrainHearing >Hearing Care is Health Care TM. Use this module to make the transition from individual hearing issues to hearing care and its relationship with overall health care. Consumers should understand that the hearing loss they ve been describing is widespread and that it s a serious health issue. But they re not alone, and there s help. 1. Hearing Care is Health Care TM. The hearing challenges we ve been discussing having trouble hearing and understanding speech are examples of the important role your brain plays in helping you hear, and how hearing in turn helps your brain do its job of helping you function in the world. Hearing loss is widespread in America. It s a serious problem, not just for your hearing, but for your overall health as well. 2. Hearing loss is the third largest public health issue in America. If you re suffering from hearing loss, you re not alone. According to the Public Hearing Institute, it affects one in five people over the age of 31, and it s largely going unnoticed. 3. 40 million Americans are affected. Hearing loss cuts across age, gender, economic strata and location. 4. Lifestyle and certain medical conditions can affect your hearing. It s not just about age. It can happen to anyone. PAGE 10
5. Hearing Loss And progressive hearing loss can have serious long-term effects on your health. 6. Hearing Loss with callouts It s related to depression, dementia, heart disease and other health problems. 7. Hearing has been linked to a variety of serious health conditions. That s why hearing care truly is health care. 8. Hearing Care Professional There are steps that you can take to care for your hearing health. 9. You ve taken an important step in the right direction today. And you ve taken one of those steps today: Seeing a Hearing Care Professional and educating yourself about hearing loss. In the next section we re going to learn about how to help your brain do its job of turning sound into information, even when your ears have been affected by hearing loss. PAGE 11
Welcome>How we hear. VIDEO Use this video to explore the way the ears and brain work together to turn sound into meaning. We ve been talking about why hearing care is health care. It s because so much of hearing takes place inside your brain, and affects how you live every day. What most people don t realize is that it s not your ears that hear, it s actually your brain that hears. Here s a video that shows the relationship between your ears and your brain when you re listening to a sound. After watching this, can you see how your brain turns sound into meaning? Does anyone want to try to explain it? PAGE 12
BrainHearing >Orient, Recognize, Focus, Separate. Use this module to help consumers understand the four important hearing functions that happen in the brain: Orient, Recognize, Focus and Separate. 1. It s your brain that hears. Not your ears. Sound is just sound until your brain turns it into something useful. Your brain uses sound information to do four important things: 2. Orient or locate you in your environment. Whether you re at a concert, in a train station, at home or walking down the street, your brain interprets sound to help you know where you are and what s going on around you. 3. Recognize a sound: A baby s cry. A bird chirping in a tree. A ringing phone. One of the first things your brain does when it receives a new sound like these is match it up against your experience and identify it. PAGE 13
4. Focus on what s important, especially in noisy sound. This requires both ears and your brain, working together as a system. 5. and Separate relevant sounds from competing noise: Music at a party. Someone coughing while you re on the phone. The dog barking while you re watching a TV show. Anything that can throw you off track. Your brain is what helps you sort through it all. PAGE 14
BrainHearing >Speech Details. Use this module to discuss the importance of speech details. If someone in your audience mentioned restaurants as a place where it s difficult to follow speech, this example, set in a restaurant, is a good tie-in. 1. Preserve the important details of speech Remember earlier someone mentioned how hard it is to follow a conversation in a noisy restaurant? The reason is because all the background noise conversations, kitchen noise, maybe even music interferes with your brain s ability to capture and preserve the important details of speech. 2. In noisy environments, voices can disappear into the background. You may hear bits and pieces, but you have a hard time making sense out of what s being said. You may not be able to tell the difference between two similar words. Chew might sound like shoe, for example. 3. The more information your brain receives, the easier it is to identify sounds and to understand what someone is saying to you. Getting all the important speech details helps you get the whole picture, even in the most difficult sound environments. PAGE 15
BrainHearing >Your hearing is a system. Use this module to discuss how the ears and brain work together as a system. This system does important work: It helps you follow conversations and it helps keep you safe in a hazardous world. Use examples given by your audience during the Q&A (Section 2: Let s Hear From You ) to tie the idea into their own experience. 1. Your hearing is a system. Your brain and ears work together to understand the world around you. Remember the video we saw a few minutes ago? It showed the pathway that sound takes as it enters your ears. Sound goes directly to your brain, and your brain turns sound into meaning. 2. Your two ears and brain automatically take in a wide variety of cues to identify and locate sound. Being able to identify and locate sounds is important. It helps you know what s happening around you so you can avoid hazards in everyday situations in a train station, for example. 3. As each sound comes into your ears, your brain identifies it. It might tell you, for example, that there s a train coming and you should step back from the edge of the platform. Your two ears and your brain work together to keep you safe, locate where sound is coming from, and help you follow conversation. The system also helps you follow conversation. You know what happens when you miss the first syllable of a word, or the first word of a sentence: it takes a while to catch up with the conversation. If your ears and brain aren t working as a system, it can take more than a while: You may never catch up. PAGE 16
BrainHearing >Effort. Use this module to help your audience realize that their hearing challenges can add stress to their lives and make them tired every day. The mental effort takes a physical toll. Use examples given by your participants during the Q&A (Section 2: Let s Hear From You ) to tie the idea into their own experience. 1. Reduce the effort involved in listening You may not realize it, but listening is hard work for your brain. It takes energy to turn sound into meaning, especially if you have hearing loss. 2. When your hearing is compromised 3. your brain has to work harder to fill in the gaps. It can make you physically tired at the end of the day, as if you were on your feet all day, wearing uncomfortable shoes. It s the same idea. The fatigue of filling in the gaps can lead you to avoid tiring situations without even knowing that it s happening. And that s when your hearing challenge can make you start withdrawing from life. You re tired, you re not having fun, and you can t figure out why. PAGE 17
BrainHearing >Personalization. Use this module to help your audience realize that everyone has an individual hearing profile made up of individual preferences, and these preferences can be very unique. Solutions for hearing, including hearing instruments, need to take this into account. 1. Take your personal sound preferences into account. Personal preferences. We all have them, right? Take ice cream for example. Whose favorite is vanilla? How about pistachio? Rocky Road? Everybody s taste is a little different. We are unique. Just like our fingerprints. 2. Your hearing is as unique as your fingerprint. It s the same with your hearing. It s unique. Nobody hears the same way you do. 3. The way you experience a sound like a dinner conversation... could be completely different from the way your spouse experiences it 4.... in fact, no two people experience sound in exactly the same way... or three, or four. PAGE 18
5. The best listening experiences are those that can be customized to match your listening needs. A personalized listening experience brings you to the table 6. BrainHearing is designed to match your unique hearing profile and personal sound preferences by matching your unique hearing profile and personal sound preferences. PAGE 19
BrainHearing Technology Works. MODULE Use this module to show your audience how Oticon s proprietary premium hearing technology supports your brain in four important ways: preserving the important details of speech; working as a system to orient you and help you follow conversation; helping you focus on conversation, and taking your personal hearing preferences into account. 1. BrainHearing works smarter, so you can live better. When your hearing is compromised, your brain can t get the information it needs to do its job. This creates fatigue, isolation, and long-term challenges to your health. That s why Oticon has designed four premium technologies into its hearing devices. These proprietary features work directly with your brain to give it what it needs to help you hear more naturally and clearly, even in difficult hearing environments. Speech Guard E works like a shield to protect the clarity of speech, even in noisy background environments. Spatial Sound allows you to hear in 3D so you can follow conversations that come from different directions in a room. Free Focus automatically selects the best directional mode for you and gives you clearer, more natural sound, even in difficult hearing situations. YouMatic enables Oticon hearing instruments to be finely tuned to match your unique hearing profile and personal sound preferences. PAGE 20
2. BrainHearing technology 96% patient satisfaction: These four premium technologies work together to help you hear more clearly and naturally by giving your brain what it needs to hear. Oticon s BrainHearing technology Helps both ears work together as a system; recognizes and preserves natural speech; separates speech from background noise,... and coordinates how sound is best understood by your brain. BrainHearing is proven to work better, with a 96% customer satisfaction rating among both new and existing consumers, based on a 2013 international study. PAGE 21
BrainHearing >Tinnitus. MODULE Use this module to explain and discuss the relationship between tinnitus and hearing health: Tinnitus, which often co-exists with hearing loss, is thought to be a reaction of the brain to damaged hearing. 1. Tinnitus If you have hearing loss, you may also suffer from tinnitus. And often times tinnitus is an early sign of hearing loss 2. What s the ringing in my ears? Tinnitus is another word for ringing and buzzing in the ear. 3. You may also hear it as humming, whistling, even the sensation of a roaring ocean. It can be constant or intermittent, in one or both ears. And only you can hear it. 4.What causes tinnitus? There are many possible causes. 5. Exposure to loud sounds, earwax blockage, injuries, and reaction to medications are some other typical causes of tinnitus. 6. What creates the perception of sound when there is none present? Whatever the cause, the common symptoms are well known: A sound, or rather the perception of a sound, that only you can hear. Where does that come from? PAGE 22
7. We think it comes from damaged hair cells within your ear. Sound travels into your ears to the hair cells, where it is converted to nerve signals and transmitted to your brain. If the cells are missing or damaged, your brain misinterprets the reduced signal as a ringing or buzzing sound. Tinnitus is literally all in your mind. 8. What does tinnitus have to do with hearing loss? Tinnitus and hearing loss often co-exist. 9. 90% An estimated 90% of tinnitus sufferers also have some degree of hearing loss. If you have tinnitus, you may think that the tinnitus is what s interfering with your hearing. More likely, it s the other way around: Your tinnitus is caused by your hearing loss. 10. How is tinnitus affecting my life? Whatever the cause, tinnitus can have a significant impact on your day-to-day life. 11. It can disrupt your work or your activities with family and friends. 12. How can I live a positive life? But tinnitus doesn t have to interfere with your enjoyment of life. You don t have to suffer alone. 13. There are no guarantees, but there are a variety of ways to manage tinnitus: music, white noise, relaxation therapy, and hearing instruments are some. Even just keeping a positive attitude can reduce the effects of tinnitus. 14. Tinnitus and BrainHearing technology Use this page to introduce your audience to Oticon s advanced new sound therapy options for tinnitus. In addition to traditional white noise and broadband sounds. Oticon s BrainHearing technology has three exclusive new ocean sounds that are preferred by tinnitus patients for relief, according to research. Managing tinnitus can be complex. Because it involves your brain, it makes sense to treat tinnitus with technology that s designed to work with your brain. That s what Oticon s hearing devices with BrainHearing do. They use a proprietary combination of advanced sound processing technology, precise personalization and soothing sound therapy to put you in control. For example, Oticon s tinnitus sound app lets you stream music and therapeutic sound directly from your iphone, ipad or Android device. 15. Oticon ocean sounds a powerful therapy option One of the new tools is a set of ocean sounds that can give your brain a soothing focal point to mask the noise of tinnitus. The sounds are built into new Oticon hearing devices. In scientific research,tinnitus patients prefer these powerful, natural sounds to the white noise that has been used for treating tinnitus up to now. PAGE 23
BrainHearing >The Process Video. VIDEO Use this video to help your audience learn what s involved in getting help for your hearing and how important it is to have a good relationship with a Hearing Care Professional. It takes both quality devices and professional expertise to get a successful outcome. Oticon designs and builds BrainHearing into Oticon hearing instruments so that a Hearing Care Professional can personalize them to meet each consumer s unique hearing needs. BrainHearing helps Oticon instruments keep sounds natural, separate voices from background noise, give wearers a clear sense of their surroundings, and take the hard work out of listening. PAGE 24
BrainHearing >Solutions. Use this module to pull together all the ideas that have been leading up to it. The more a hearing device can help your brain do what it needs to do, the more natural and healthy your hearing experience is going to be. That s the idea behind BrainHearing, the philosophy that Oticon uses to design their hearing solutions. 1. Give your brain exactly what it needs to hear BrainHearing is about giving your brain exactly what it needs to hear. 2. That s the idea behind the latest generation of Oticon hearing instruments. 3. Oticon instruments are designed to be sleek, discreet and stylish in your ear. And, because of BrainHearing technology, they are exceptional at doing the things we ve talked about: preserving the important details of speech; working as a system to locate sounds and follow conversation; and reducing the effort involved in listening. 4. And they re Finely tuned to match your hearing profile and personal sound preferences. 5. Available in a wide range of styles and colors to meet your preferences. You can choose from many designs or custom fittings that suit your lifestyle and hearing abilities for a more natural and effortless listening experience. Anywhere. Anytime. PAGE 25
BrainHearing >Next steps Use this module as a call to action. 1. Next steps If you want to learn more about you own hearing 2. Schedule your appointment the next step is to set up an appointment so we can evaluate your hearing. 3. Have your hearing evaluated The evaluation will determine your abilities and your limits, and will identify other conditions, like tinnitus. 4. Discuss treatment options Once we understand your personal hearing profile, we can discuss treatment options. It s as easy as that. PAGE 26
BrainHearing >Hearing is believing. CLOSING ANIMATION That s it. Thanks for joining us today. I m looking forward to helping each one of you experience the difference in your life that BrainHearing can make. Once you try it, you ll see: Hearing is believing. PAGE 27
Resources Resources for additional follow-up include: BrainHearing VIDEO A longer version of the BrainHearing video from the Welcome section, with product detail History of Oticon PRESENTATION A time-line slide-show that shows how Oticon was founded on compassionate care for the hearing impaired, and has led the industry with technology breakthroughs for more than 110 years. (No audio) The values behind the Oticon name 3-SCREEN SERIES 1. Compassion for people suffering from hearing loss is behind everything we do. 2. The company was founded in Denmark by Hans Demant in 1904 out of compassion for his wife s hearing loss. Today, Oticon remains true to this mission, and is directed by a charitable Foundation. Education is core to Oticon s relationship with hearing care professionals and patients. It is not a one-way relationship. It is a perpetual process of teaching and learning. 3. People First is our promise to empower people to communicate freely, interact naturally and participate actively. Offering patients the most natural listening experience that technology can provide, so they may participate in life as fully as possible, is first and foremost in all we do. PAGE 28