AudioCardio - "maintain and strengthen your hearing"

Hearing Loss Apps
#1

I came across this interview on hearinghealthmatters.org interviewing the team behind Audio Cardio - an app that supposedly improves hearing ability (for both normal and hard-of-hearing people) via sound.

You can read the interview here:

And download the app here:

I just joined today, I’ll post my experience as I start using the app.

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#2

Looking to hear from you, this app seems interesting.

#3

Yes it does seem interesting. I wonder if it’s a bit of a false result though. I hope not, but this really seems far-fetched. Perhaps what they are doing is teaching people a bit about audio and as a result, the listener becomes more aware of what they are hearing?

#4

I downloaded the app and took the initial hearing test and scored a 60 out of a 100 score. Afterwards it stated that following the two week free trial it would cost $14 per month.
That’s when I stopped. I will wait for others to comment if this is legitimate or not.

#5

Test scoring reminds me of speed reading businesses decades ago. I think Evelyn Wood was one such business. You’d take an initial speed reading test and score poorly. Then after a week or two of being tutored, you’d take another test and, guess what?!, your score would tremendously improve. But the 2nd test was actually purposefully easier than the first so it was almost automatic that you’d do a lot better. The “big improvement” was supposed to encourage you to keep taking speed reading lessons.

Although I am unfairly implying such might be the case here, too, as they say, “Caveat emptor!” - Buyer Beware! Even the Romans centuries ago knew to be careful with what you buy into (literally and figuratively).

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#6

I’ll summon @Neville to jump in :slight_smile:

My thoughts is that even if training works, only thing you’re training your brain with are pure tones. So you’ll be better at audiogram, but your speech comprehension and SNR will still be where they were before that.

And I never saw anyone saying ‘oh, I want to get better audiogram test results’ :joy:

Also, 10 db difference isn’t anything important. I get that depending on how tired I am or at which device I’m tested, or how focused I am on test itself. Or how bad my tinnitus is during the test.

So far, we have information that brain training works:

  • with more exposure to sound you want to understand better (streaming audiobooks/podcasts/youtube)
  • maybe LACE training since they force you to get better in noise (I did one session only, but with new aids and so many discoveries and many streaming that I didn’t do before that I can’t say, yeah, lace alone made a difference. What is true is that their noise exercises were hard even on lowest level of challenge, so they definitely have potential to help in terms of working on your challenging situation. Plus is that it works in browser, also on phones, and you pay once for lifetime access, I think it was around 40 eur or something. I made a topic about it.)
  • theta music trainer or similar (it forces you to focus on distinguishing sounds and recognising one among many. I tried it but found too hard for me now, especially since I have zero music training or interest so I don’t always know what to look for)

That’s about it, from things that have potential to work, and in all of them, you have to train your brain, be focused, force your brain to connect those dots.

So, ‘do nothing’ in my opinion will lead to ‘nothing’.

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#7

The study is pretty uninspiring. They don’t present the magnitude of the change and, quite frankly, it looks like they are playing statistical tricks with some random results. I also wouldn’t be convinced that a change in signal-detection criteria would show improvements in speech recognition which, at the end of the day, is what we want.

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