I wish I had better 'news'. HLAA is a relatively small organization compared to many others. HLAA depends highly on volunteers. Lobbyists are generally paid advocates. HLAA can only do so much. If more people would get involved HLAA could do more.

There is so much disinformation about hearing loss and the stigma that surrounds it prevents people from getting the correct information. Just look at some of the advertisements that push 'hearing aids so small no one will know you're using them'. That invisibility thing has stumped a lot of advocacy and involvement because people think they should be ashamed of having hearing loss. When you're ashamed of something you don't talk about it much less lobby for it.

Medicare is all about money and money to pay for whatever is needed thorough Medicare has to be available. Not a good reason, but it's the truth. Other issues trump hearing loss.

Sadly, people with hearing loss AND the general public do not know enough about hearing technology to educate, advocate and make personal decisions. HLAA has done a ton to educate those who are willing to come to the table to talk about it and learn.

Volunteerism is hurting badly all over the place. Sadly.

I am aware of fully implanted hearing aids, but they are not really there yet. My cochlear implant gave me my life back. I only regret waiting as long as I did to get it. I fear that many people who think there will be something better down the line will wait too long to benefit from it. Not sure if I said this before but will say it again. I had two friends who were in the medical field who became profoundly hard of hearing as they aged. They didn't want to get cochlear implants because they felt something better was coming. Both have passed away. Both could probably have had much better last decades had they gone the CI route. Who knows??

Not sure where to jump back into this conversation. I've been busy creating the latest HLAA Wisconsin newsletter this week. It's posted on the HLAAWI website if anyone is interested. http://www.hlaawi.org Lots of interesting information.

A reality: Far less attention has been done on hearing loss than on most other medical issues. You can blame organizations, people, researchers, whomever for that. Advocacy is something done by 'the people'. Hearing loss stigmas keep people from talking about it much less advocating for better products, more attention, etc. Sad but true.

I am sure there will be a totally implantable device for hearing in the future. The cochlear implant technology currently available is amazing. The idea of a 'cure' is wonderful but it's not a reality at this point in time. I hope it will be someday. Maybe AI will ultimately do that. We can dream about it any way.

The Envoy implantable hearing aid has been discussed and in development for years. I do not know enough about it currently to comment, so if you find more information please share it. It would be interesting to know how it would be 'fired'. How long will an internal battery last before needing to be replaced? Where in the human skull would there be room to fully implant a cochlear implant with processor?

I have a cochlear implant and a hearing aid. I swim. I take my devices off when I swim. I cannot hear at all. There are products that cover cochlear processors and hearing aids that allow a person to use them in the water. They are a bit cumbersome but people use them.

Having lived with diagnosed hearing loss since the early 1960s, I have benefitted greatly from the technology that has evolved. Initially I was told that NOTHING could ever help me during my life span. Not to waste $ on hearing aids that wouldn't help me. CIs were not even a thought then. When they did become a 'thought' they were ridiculed, and the very idea was a joke even among the medical profession specializing in this area.

I was fortunate to have become involved in the organization that was the precursor to HLAA in the early 80s and entered the conversations about how hearing loss affected us along with what was happening in R & D and what kind of strategies and assistive technology worked. We dreamed of the future when hearing aids would be better. We imagined things like automatic speech to text and having live captions on TV.

By then I had gotten hearing aids. They helped a little bit in quiet settings. Noisy environments were horrible until I learned about assistive technology I could connect to those analog hearing aids. Life changing. Why had no one told me about that? Sadly, that is still the main question we hear from people who are new at HLAA meetings. The people who are in 'business' to help us whether they are medical doctors, audiologists or hearing instrument specialists, don't provide us with the information we need to improve our lives significantly. Most of it comes from 'the people', just like those on MCC.

It wasn't that many years ago that we didn't have Google. Research was done at our local libraries. Many people who need information do not know how to find it. This is especially true in the senior population. Technology advancements have overwhelmed a generation. They have helped generations. They will continue to do that one step at a time.

Only thing I can say about the future is that it will come. 🙂 However if NOW is when you want to be able to hear and participate socially, etc., what is now available now is amazingly good. My only CI regret is that I didn't get the CI sooner. I was implanted in 2005 and have benefitted from upgrades since then, every one has been better than the one before it. Yes, we would all like to see more being done and things happening for the better faster. Until the population with hearing loss, especially those with adult onset hearing loss, decide to come out of the closet and start advocating, educating, writing to the congressional representatives, volunteering to do outreach, etc. it will likely not go any faster than it presently is.