What if tweaking your hearing aid settings could actually improve your mood? In this video, Erin Picou, Au.D., Ph.D., Associate Professor and director of the Hearing and Affect Perception Interest Laboratory at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, shares groundbreaking research on how personalized hearing aid programming goes far beyond better sound—it transforms emotional wellbeing, confidence, and energy levels.
Transcript:
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
Well, Dr. Picou, it’s so great to see you. Thanks for joining us on the program this morning.
Erin Picou, Au.D., Ph.D., Vanderbilt University Medical Center
Yeah, Jeff, thank you so much for having me. Big fan of your network.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
I appreciate that. And we’re a big fan of all these great studies that you, the team at Vanderbilt, and quite frankly, everyone around the country and the world is doing around retirement and savings and hearing and everything. So it’s a great credit to what everyone’s doing.
I want to ask you about the study that you put together with your team. Before I get there, though, I want to ask you about, you know, hearing aids, because there’s been a lot of development in that field. There’s a lot of new technology that allows for a lot of personalization of in-ear hearing devices.
Erin Picou, Au.D., Ph.D., Vanderbilt University Medical Center
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, hearing aids are personal devices, and there are two kinds of hearing aids that are available right now. You can get them over the counter, or you can see an audiologist.
In both cases, they can be personalized. The audiologist-fit hearing aids, of course, are more personable. But in all cases, hearing aids are designed to address somebody’s individual hearing loss and their hearing loss profile.
So we can have specific gain settings or volume control settings. We can also turn off or turn on noise reduction features or sound processing things. So we can make them highly personal for exactly what somebody needs based on not only their hearing, but their lifestyle and the kinds of listening situations that are really important for them.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
And they are so tiny. I know a loved one who has one now just got fitted for them on a little bit older age range, and I saw them. You can’t even tell Dr. Pakoo that the person’s wearing them. So the stigma must have evaporated. There used to be a stigma around hearing aids and hearing devices.
Erin Picou, Au.D., Ph.D., Vanderbilt University Medical Center
Yeah. I don’t know if the stigma has evaporated, but I will echo that. They are tiny.
They are remarkable. They come in colors that can match skin tone or hair tone. They also come in fun colors.
So sometimes we see people who want the gulf green or the bright red hearing aids. So they can be visible if you wanted them to be, but they are also very small and discreet. And even as an audiologist, when I go out in the world, I miss them.
I don’t notice them all the time. So they’re very small. They pack an amazing amount of technology into these little tiny devices.
When you think about what a hearing aid is doing, a hearing aid has a microphone, lots and lots of processing inside, and then a loudspeaker, right? So if you think about a car stereo system or a TV or a home theater system, you have these big loudspeakers, and all of that is crammed into this really small device that goes in your ear. So they’re, in my biased opinion, pretty remarkable pieces of technology.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
Yeah. And I remember when the microprocessor was created, we’ve gotten to a point where these things are probably as powerful or more powerful than the computers that put men on the moon or put men in space. So it’s pretty impressive.
I want to go back to personalization because in your study and the team study, it’s not just you, it’s a team, that personalization is really important, I would ask to you. Is it really important to that individual and does it affect their overall demeanor to be able to have a device that is personalized to them?
Erin Picou, Au.D., Ph.D., Vanderbilt University Medical Center
Yeah, I fully believe that the personalization is important, not just a hearing aid gain profile, but also making sure that we get the right kind of sound design and hearing aid features activated to accommodate somebody’s lifestyle because we can, like I said, we have so many options available in these hearing aids to personalize them. Getting the right fit between the person and the device is critically important and audiologists can really help with that. In our study, what we did is we were specifically focused on the hearing aid gain profile or the volume control of the hearing aids, and we found that when we got the hearing aid personalized just right for patients, their mood at the end of the day was better.
So on days when they were wearing hearing aids that were personalized for them and met their specific listening needs, they were less tired, had more energy, and were more confident at the end of the day. So I think that’s a really powerful thing to think about how hearing aid gain settings and getting the personalization just right can make somebody feel better at the end of the day.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
Did those results surprise you? Anytime you do scientific research like you did, I think you go in with a thesis, but then you don’t have any preconceived notions on the back end. So did the results that you saw based on the research surprise you?
Or did it just make sense?
Erin Picou, Au.D., Ph.D., Vanderbilt University Medical Center
Yeah, I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but I was surprised. I didn’t really feel like, or I was surprised because there are so many things that can affect mood that people, if you think about what makes you feel good at the end of the day, it’s exercise and eating, and whether or not you’ve been social. And the fact that we can add hearing aid personalization to the list of things that can make you feel better at the end of the day was surprising and really cool, powerful finding.
When I step back a little bit, I’m not actually surprised as a scientist, I guess, because we know that there are other sensory experiences that can affect mood. So if you are in harsh lighting or bad lighting, if the temperature is too hot or too cold, or your clothes are uncomfortable, we know that sensory experiences can affect mood. And so ultimately, I guess I’m not fully surprised that hearing aid sound quality can also affect mood, but it is also still really cool.
And I guess a little bit surprising that a good, well-fit, optimized, personalized hearing aid can affect mood at the end of the day.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, obviously I’m not a practitioner like you, but I think it just makes a lot of sense because a lot of us want to be heard, you want to participate, especially as we get older, if we start to lose hearing, maybe you don’t, if you can’t hear, you’re not able to participate, that can, you know, you don’t feel a part, you don’t feel that communal aspect that is so necessary for humans.
So I think it makes complete sense. Let me ask you about the research and what it means for your colleagues, your, you know, practitioners out there, because, you know, there are many audiologists and professionals out there helping individuals. Does this kind of make things a little bit more qualitative?
And how does that help with the future of your profession?
Erin Picou, Au.D., Ph.D., Vanderbilt University Medical Center
Yeah, I don’t know about the future of our profession, but I will say for our practitioners and our patients, I think that results like these and, well, these results and results like them suggest that it’s worth taking the time to get those hearing aids personally fit for each person. So you could take a hearing aid, pick it up off the shelf, put it on a patient, and they could go home and they can hear more things, and that’s great. But if you spend a little bit more time making sure that that fit and that gain and possibly those hearing aid features are exactly right for that patient, it has the potential to be really rewarding for things that go beyond just hearing more sounds.
We can, by getting this personalization just right, we can ultimately help people feel better at the end of the day.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
And are there some lessons, so those are some good lessons for audiologists, people in your profession, but what about the manufacturers? I mean, I would imagine that the people creating these devices, it’s almost like engineering a mission to the moon. I mean, there’s so many different moving pieces, maybe on a microscopic level, but are they going to take this research and say, well, we can continue to improve the customization level of these types of devices that we create now and in the future?
Erin Picou, Au.D., Ph.D., Vanderbilt University Medical Center
Yeah, I certainly hope so. So devices that are flexible and offer ways that we can personalize them. And then stepping back, more options, I think.
So we have, you know, a handful of major manufacturers in the hearing aid space, and they vary based on how hearing aids are designed to process sound. And so I think as a clinician, it’s nice to have lots of different options for sound design so that we can match the right, the sound design that goes right for the individual patient. So no, that’s a field, like to the manufacturers as a whole, I say I like to keep the different options for sound design.
And then within a manufacturer, it’s great to have this flexibility so that we can personalize the hearing aids. And then to the patients, which I think was part of your other question, but to the patients, I’d say, if you’re not satisfied with your sound quality of your hearing aids, please talk to your practitioner, your audiologist or your hearing instrument specialist, because they can do things to adjust the hearing aids to make them better. So what you get the first time you’re fit with a hearing aid isn’t the end all be all.
And you might even be able to try a different brand that might have a different sound design that you might like better. So keep trying and don’t just try a hearing aid, decide you don’t like it and give up on it.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
If I could end our conversation on at what age? So, you know, we’re mainly talking to people that know that they have hearing loss and are working with an audiologist. But I want to talk to the people there, you know, the other 90 some odd percent that maybe they don’t have hearing loss.
So what age should you get a hearing test? Should it be at all ages in different increments? Should it be at 40, 50, 60, 80?
Or how do you make that determination? And then my second part of the question is, does it hurt? The hearing test?
Erin Picou, Au.D., Ph.D., Vanderbilt University Medical Center
Hurt? No, full disclosure, it might be a little bit boring. So a lot of what a hearing test is, is sitting in a quiet, probably dimly lit room listening for soft beeps through headphones.
So it won’t hurt, but it might be a little bit boring, but totally worth it. So my recommendation is that anytime you think that you might be having trouble hearing, or you might notice that your spouse is having to repeat themselves, or the volume on the TV is going up, or you just can’t quite catch the dialogue in, you know, in whatever show you’re watching. Anytime you think that you might be having trouble, get it checked out.
Doesn’t hurt at all. As far as age, I don’t know. But if you haven’t had a hearing test in a while, now’s a good time.
For many of us, we haven’t had our hearing checked since maybe we were in kindergarten or elementary school or something. So if you haven’t done it yet, how about now?
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
Yeah, and to point, just go back to that, if you’re on the younger, well, you know, a lot of us use the earbuds or the AirPods, whatever the brands that you, you know, there’s a lot of them. We don’t want to give special attention to just one brand. But even if you’re on the younger end, you’re going to want to, you know, like a Vanderbilt football game or basketball game, it’s loud in there, going to a rock concert, you’re at risk.
So you should maybe get a baseline test.
Erin Picou, Au.D., Ph.D., Vanderbilt University Medical Center
Yeah, absolutely. And also maybe bring some earplugs to those games.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
Yeah, they’re pretty loud. They’re pretty loud. Dr. Pakoo, very great research. Thanks so much for joining us. And look, we look forward to bring you back on the program again very soon.
Erin Picou, Au.D., Ph.D., Vanderbilt University Medical Center
Yeah, thank you so much for having me.
