Gamified Self-Guided Auditory Training with Eargym CEO Amanda Philpott

Brian Taylor: Hello, and welcome
to another episode of This Week

in Hearing. I’m Brian Taylor.

Our topic this week is app based
auditory training. And my guest

here to discuss it is Amanda
Philpott, who’s the CEO of

Eargym. We’re really excited to
have Amanda on the on the

telecast today. Welcome to This
Week in Hearing Amanda, it’s

great to have you with us.

Amanda Philpott: Thank you,
Brian. Thanks for having me on.

Brian Taylor: Well, this Eargym
looks like a really cool

auditory training app. Could you
tell us a little bit about how

long eargym has been around and
what it does?

Amanda Philpott: Sure, yeah.
Eargym has been around for four

years. So we came about as a
digital health tech startup in

2020. And Andy, who’s my co
founder, Andy and I met on a

zinc venture capital accelerator
aimed at building businesses

that could improve the quality
of life of 100 million older

people. And I’m an ex NHS, Chief
Executive of the English

National Health Service. So I’ve
done in population health for

nearly 30 years, run hospitals
and things. And Andy’s a retired

DJ, and in digital health
product specialists. So kind of

a good combination of skills.
But what we found when we were

on sync, somebody from our
national charity, the Royal

National Institute for the Deaf
came along and talked about not

only the size and scale of the
challenge of hearing loss, but

also the correlation with
dementia. And that hearing loss

is the biggest amenable factor
in dementia. And that motivated

us to learn a huge amount more
and see what we could do. And in

the early stages of our
researching the topic, we found

Andy and I both found that we
both have moderate hearing loss.

And in fact, my father was
deeply affected not only by

unaddressed here in hospitals,
so in his final stages of

dementia, and so the subject
resonated hugely, but then also

became just really interesting
to see whether or not we could

make our own contribution. sp

Brian Taylor: well, can you tell
us a little bit about who would

be it will tell us sort of
what’s happening inside the app,

I know that there’s some
training exercises, but in

addition to that, there’s some
other things. So just tell us a

little bit more about what you
can find inside the app.

Amanda Philpott: Yeah, that’s
right. It starts with training

with sorry, training is in
within the app, but it’s what we

have is check, train, and advice
and guidance. So that first page

is really we recognize the
problem of people not really

checking their hearing. So
wanting 20 people in the UK will

check their hearing every year
versus wanting to during their

sight or their teeth or
whatever. So we wanted to create

something going over some of the
barriers to you know, the fears

or the time taken or the
perceptions and misperceptions

people have about hearing
checks. So we’ve deliberately

set about building an app that
makes it tricking your hair and

easy. And we have a really easy
frequency slider, which of

course, y’all know is it’s not
clinically valid. But it is a

really helpful indicator, it
gets people to think about their

hearing, we’ve delivered over
350,000 of those now. And then

it within the app itself, we’ve
got digital triplets test, which

of course, you’ll all know, and
it’s the one that’s used by the

World Health Organization and
others. And we are also using

the Amsterdam inventory so that
people get to understand not

only their hearing level,
whether or not they’ve got

normal hearing or possible
hearing loss detected, but also

the impact on their life through
those sort of qualitative

questions. And we also we have
other hearing checks, but those

are about the impacts of
training. So that’s the checks.

And then the training games, we
have developed ourselves in

house and the short games, they
take a few minutes each, and

they are based on the principle
of practicing listening. So we

took Witten at Allen work like
that, around the impact of

auditory training in the lab.
And we recognized that that’s

really the early days of lace
training. If you like when

you’re talking about speech
against white noise, it’s quite

uncomfortable or can be quite
uncomfortable to listen to. And

we deliberately set about trying
to build something that people

would enjoy. So we have games
where you’re a barista in a

cafe, and you are trying to make
sense of waters against

increasingly complex ambient
sound. But we also get people to

practice localization and
detectives, or detection. So we

we record our games by an orally
and have a simple interface for

people to play with their
hearing, practice listening. And

then we have a measure we use
the CCRM as a measure of

progress over four or seven
weeks just so people can see

impact. And then the third area
Is advice and guidance. So our

in house audiologist has helped
us to do our GPs have helped us

to develop that the sort of
thing people want to know when

they’re a little bit worried
about going to see a

professional face to face. So
what they might think about what

they might be asked to what they
might expect to experience and

start in terms of what a PTA
feels like one of those

different things, so that we can
take the fear out of it and

enable them to get access to
care that they need.

Brian Taylor: Oh, it’s great. I
downloaded the app. And I was

using it a little bit. And it’s
pretty, uh that I thought the

simulated restaurant cafe
situations were really very

realistic. And I also was on
your website, and I noticed that

you’re targeting five specific
auditory skills. As I write, you

mentioned localization, can you
tell us about the five skills

that you’re targeting with the
training exercises?

Amanda Philpott: Sure, when we
when we were doing our early

investment research about how we
might develop something to

contribute to the whole field of
hearing loss, we recognize that

hearing skills are important.
And we you know, we could find

lists of you know, some people
would go to nine different

hearing skills. But everything
seemed to send a really everyone

who seemed to focus on a five
core skills of detection,

localization, discrimination,
and intelligibility in silence

and intelligibility and noise.
So that’s what we focus on is,

can you hear the sound in the
first place? Can you tell where

it’s coming from? And can you
apply meaning to it?

Brian Taylor: Can you tell us a
little bit about hearing aid

wearers that might be a good
target for Eargym. Like, how

would you? How do you see your
gym maybe used in the clinic?

Well, one of the things, I think
that’s great about it of

courses, it’s self guided. And
one of the problems or one of

the challenges with auditory
training, historically, is that

people just don’t use it. But if
Eargym is something that is easy

to self guided, it’s sort of
this, there’s a gamification

element to it. So tell us how
you see Eargym, maybe

supplementing hearing aid use?

Amanda Philpott: Yeah, shall we,
and just really assure you and

your listeners, we do have
people who are hearing aid users

who try and train with Eargym
and you want my own hearing aids

or Bluetooth connected,
sometimes I will train with my

headphones, and sometimes I’ll
train with hearing aids, and

it’s, you know, it’s good. So
what we see the opportunity, and

we talk to high street
audiologists about this quite a

lot is about the rejection rate
for hearing aids. So when people

have left, it’s so long, and
that the, you know, hearing when

when we put our hearing aids in
and the sensory overload is so

much that it’s actually too
much. And we reject our hearing

aids. And, you know, the
industry figures that we see are

really quite a high rejection
rate of hearing aids. So what

we’re hoping is that people get
the chance to, and what we’ve

talked to our users about is
people get the chance to just

practice this thing, in a safe
environment where they can

control the volume, and they
know what’s coming. And it can

sort of manage the surprise
effect, if you like, and they

practice listening safely, and
then eventually get used to

wearing the hearing aids for
say, four hours a day or

something, you know, but sorry,
let me just be clear are games

and I, you know, three, four
minutes maximum. But we know

that there are there’s a minimum
number of length of time that

it’s that it takes two people to
get used to the hearing aid. So

we want to be part of that part
of that cycle of getting people

to feel that it’s not
overwhelming with the number of

sounds that they that brain is
now needing to process.

Brian Taylor: I see. Tell us
about how people can acquire

Eargym, is it it looks like it’s
a subscription service? Yes.

Amanda Philpott: So it’s
available on both iOS and

Android. And it’s the equivalent
of 40 British pounds per annum.

So I guess that’s what’s that
just short of $50 a year. And

that’s it. So what you get for
that is you get your suite of

checks, you can train as much as
you like. And we will recommend

it according to your how you
perform on our checks will

recommend the games and we’ll
recommend how much you train

for. Most people will train for
maybe three, four times a week

for maybe five minutes. So it’s
not not very onerous. And then

you can choose to do the checks
within the app as often as you

like. We are moving towards an
intensive four week cycle so

that people can feel the
improvement and then top up at

will. So the science that we
based him on we know that when

people do auditory training,
they can see an up to 16%

improvement. But that when they
stop training, they drop off

again, back to that previous
hearing level. So what we want

to do is find the model that
that makes interesting makes

hearing training interesting
enough for people to help us to

understand what the best pattern
of training is to maintain

benefit.

Brian Taylor: Right? And that’s
something that you’re continuing

to study right now.

Amanda Philpott: Yeah,
absolutely. Eargym is half and

half funded between research
funding and equity investment.

And it’s really important to us
that we are research led. In

fact, we just celebrated the end
of a two year research project

that was funded by UK government
research funding, which was all

about using a design. So we’ve
done some material improvements

to the app that include things
like you mentioned gamification,

it’s really important for us to
collect data over time about

people’s hearing performance,
and cognition, and emotional

well being, well, we use the
language of play our userland

design panels have, but really
put them off because they want

to practice listening, they want
to train. And then also, they

said, if I have a level of
hearing loss that requires

professional support, I don’t
want to share my phone to the

professional, I’m saying I want
a downloadable report. So we’ve

developed a really simple,
succinct downloadable report of

this is what we’re seeing on
Eargym. This, you know, hand it

to your professional and it
might help that help that

professional conversation. Yeah

Brian Taylor: That’s
interesting. So one follow up

question I have is with Eargym,
is this something that sort of

as it sounds like it’s led more
by the individual with hearing

loss? And they take them to the
clinician, for them to maybe for

their personalized insight? Do
you see it sort of working in

reverse? I know, there’s been
other programs that have

launched, where the the
clinician is, is kind of

encouraging the the hearing aid
wearer or the individual with

hearing loss to use the program?
And how do you see that

interaction?

Amanda Philpott: Yeah, let me
start off, I mean, you know, we,

like every other startup, you
feel your way really to find the

best way into your, into your
target market, but the B2C

route, so the direct download
route by individuals has been

really, really helpful for us
because we, we understand who we

reach, we understand what they
like and what they don’t I can

we get to see where they drop
off and where they spend time.

But it isn’t, it isn’t, we know
that there are better ways to

reach the audience that might
best benefit. And generally

speaking, that’s going to be
people with possible or definite

hearing loss detected. People
whose work lives or productive

lives might be affected. And
they might be most likely

probably worried about their
hearing, but not know what to do

about it. And often, we know
that people will turn to their

audiology appointment, and not
quite be ready for hearing aids.

Whether or not that’s because of
the hearing level, or because of

their personal desire or
affordability or anything else.

We aren’t in fact, at this
moment, we are undertaking a

point of care trial with a high
street audiology chain, to

understand whether or not it
becomes it is naturally

something that audiologist
seeing patients will find a

helpful part of their of the
offer that they can make to to

the people sitting in front.

Brian Taylor: interesting. Can
you tell us more about the

profile that the typical user of
Eargym, somebody that downloads

it, that would be a heavy user
that say, do you have like an

age or a certain amount of
hearing loss?

Amanda Philpott: Yeah, I’ll tell
you what’s really interesting

actually, is the immediate I
mentioned the frequency slider

ear age check, which just takes
30 seconds, and then we’ve done

350,000 of them over half the
people who do that I ranged

under 25. And I find that I
think that’s really interesting

and really hopeful. Because of
course, we all know about the

challenge of unsafe listening
and what that’s doing to young

people’s hearing. Right. So
that’s really interesting. But

of course, there, they are not
the people who wants to download

and train with the app, they
want to check their hearing, but

they’re not at a stage yet where
they’re worried about their

hearing level. It’s about
debris, what we see in terms of

the people who then who do the
checks and then move into the

playing the game was training
with the games is that they tend

to be people who have possible
or definite hearing loss

detected, and they tend to be
aged 45 to 65. And so they tend

to be people where there is a
clear, you know, the check show

that there is clear room for
improvement, and that there is

an incentive to do so. And so
that tends to be the that tends

to be the audience segment that
wants to do the training games,

and it does them regularly. So
we see we see almost, we see a

wide spread of adults of all
ages up to 85 trying Eargym that

these two things have not yet at
a level of hearing loss or a

level of awareness of morbidity
or anything else you know, or at

the more extreme end where they
might actually just need to go

to hearing aids much more
quickly they tend to train an

assets the middle group between

Brian Taylor: good to know when
another question I have is, What

are your thoughts on somebody
who kind of already alluded to

this, but somebody who maybe is
not ready for hearing aids for

various reasons. Do you see
Eargym is sort of like a gateway

to amplification of ventually?
Or training wheels? You know,

early intervention seems to be
an important thing. How does

Eargym fit into that?

Amanda Philpott: Yeah,
absolutely, Brian completely

spot on. It’s one of the most
important things that we set out

to do was raise awareness. And a
part of our branding for aging

is loving your hearing, we want
to bring hearing and caring for

all hearing this part of our
holistic health and well being

right to front and center. You
know, our love of music or

birdsong, everything else being
engaged in our social lives, you

know, not annoying people with
the sound of telly. All of those

things, we think the quality of
life aspect of hearing is

something that is significantly
overlooked. And we are trying to

address that. So where people
are, we know that we have a way

to go around enabling people to
think that hearing aids are as

fashionable as glasses. But
that’s where we want to get to,

you know, we we, the way we
characterize it, whenever we

talk about it is that we think
hearing aids are great with

technology, and amazing. And the
way that we characterize how we

complement hearing aids is that
hearing aids addressed the high

here and the hardware of our, of
how we take in sound. And what

agent does is do the hearing
software, the way in which we

process sound, and building on
that, that actually our hearing

is the holistic part of both
hardware and software. And we

complement hearing aids. So we
do see ourselves not only as

raising awareness for, for
people to think actually I might

go and get those now. I might
not put it off, life might be

better, but also to help people
to get used to hearing aids when

they do that, as well. And
actually, there’s a third

element or first element, which
is they may not be you know that

their hearing level may not be
right for hearing aids, but they

might want to maintain their
hearing that they do have their

performance hearing. And that’s
also equally important thinking

this.

Brian Taylor: My final question
for you, Amanda, what words of

advice do you have here in the
US and primarily our audiences

in the US? For clinicians and
for persons with hearing loss?

What would you want them to know
about Eargym, that we haven’t

already said?

Amanda Philpott: No, that’s a
really good question. I Well,

one thing I do want to say is
that we want to, we built a

product that would contribute
data to the relationship, the

long term relationship between
here and cognition over our

lifetimes. That’s why we built a
gamified fun project, because we

want to contribute to the
research. But we also, you know,

we know that there are great
brands out there, we know that

they’re, you know, really
significant experienced people

who are working in this field,
who have been touched on

tackling these project problems
from from many different

perspectives. And we want to
contribute to the challenge of

unaddressed hearing loss, and,
and actually promote good

hearing health for life. So what
I would like to say is encourage

people to use it, encourage
people to use it, and it’s

easily accessible. And we really
welcome feedback. And we are a

company that acts on feedback.
You know, we use it, it does

inform how we do things. So we
welcome the engagement.

Brian Taylor: Well, let me echo
that I’ve been on your website,

I downloaded it and used it. And
it’s a fantastic tool. I would

encourage clinicians to
recommend it to all of their

hearing aid wearers, or even
people that are coming into the

office that are you know, just
getting some information. I

think it’s a great tool to raise
awareness for all of the reasons

that you said. So kudos to you
and your team for bringing

something like this to market.
It’s well needed. And I think

it’s an awesome tool.

Amanda Philpott: That’s really
kind of you just say Brian, I’m

so glad because you’ve got such
a great experience of getting

that kind of accolade from you
really means a lot I really

appreciate

Brian Taylor: oh no, and have-
Yeah, it’s I mean it I mean it’s

a these things are very much
needed inside the field. And

anything we can do to raise
awareness is incredibly helpful.

Amanda, thank you for your time.
Where can people I see it, it’s

on the screen, but tell people
where they can download it or

get more information about
Eargym. So

Amanda Philpott: on if you’re
downloading the app, it’s on

iOS, it’s on alkalinize on
Android phones, and it’s just a

gem EDA our GYN but if you want
to know more about edge and we

are a gem dot world And this is
clicking links on the website if

that’s an easy way to now.

Brian Taylor: Yeah, it’s
impressive that there’s a lot of

science behind this and you can
find it on the website. Yep.

Amanda Philpott: Yep,
absolutely. Brian has been a

real pleasure to meet you.

Brian Taylor: Amanda Philpott,
CEO and co founder of Eargym.

Thank you for your time. Really
appreciate it.

Amanda Philpott: Thanks, Brian.