Music Soothes the Savage Beast

I don’t really mean that our patients are beasts, but let’s face it, buying hearing aids is about as much fun as replacing a transmission or a roof for most folks.  Especially the first timers!  They don’t want hearing aids, they don’t want to need hearing aids.  Really now, who can blame people for being a bit grumpy?  They haven’t yet experienced the improvement in life quality that the devices and our services provide.

Our home is, and always was, filled with music.  The kids played instruments in school and the boys even played all through college.   Since music is such a pleasant and important part of our lives, and we are in our offices 8-10 hours a day, music wafts throughout those rooms as well.

But it’s not all about us; we are, after all, in the business of hearing.  Not just hearing speech but hearing life.  A babbling brook, the sound of a puppy with a dirty sock and the beautiful sounds of music are all a part of the rich sound-scape we strive to restore for our patients.  The addition of music to the fitting process disarms patients, calms them and makes the visit much for fun for them and for us.

Interestingly, a book published last year discusses research regarding the fact that human brains are hard-wired to respond to music.  Additional studies suggest that someday music may help patients heal from a myriad of diseases such as stroke and Parkinson’s.  Scientists have found that music stimulates more parts of the brain than any other human function.  No wonder music soothes the savage beast or the out of control 3 year old or the reluctant hearing aid candidate.  Music is in a word, powerful.

All of our fitting rooms are equipped with computers, programming software, microscopes, otoscopes and other “clinic-y”stuff….but none more important than a high end sound system and iTunes.

During one fitting , our audiologist asked, as is his custom, “what kind of music do you like?”  The patient responded definitively with, Pavarotti!  When the hearing aids were on and Pavarotti was cued up this patient closed his eyes, leaned back in his chair and sang along (in Italian)…..for the entire 3+ minutes.  He was in heaven.  The rest of the fitting and subsequent relationship with this gentlemen has gone very well.  Real life demonstrations of enhanced hearing with hearing aids is illustrative and powerful in motivating people to treat their hearing loss.  You can talk about hearing aids and show pictures all day long, but a demonstration with a signal that patients love (in addition to speech in noise)  is really powerful.   As a profession, we tend to emphasize speech intelligibility.  While this is at the top of our priority list, as mentioned earlier…..there are so many sounds that bring value, depth and enjoyment to life.

Now let me warn you; when you have a 60ish year old woman struggling with her hearing and you fit her with hearing aids and play You’ve Got a Friend or Fire and Rain, you better have a box of tissues handy……and keep one for yourself.