Caroline Dawn is as active a person as you may wish to meet – she runs, she cycles, she swims and is a keen hiker.
But she admits the most life-changing experience has been the introduction of wearing an Amplifon hearing aid after years of suffering fatigue and tiredness because of the consequences of her being hard of hearing.
Caroline, assistant director of operations at an NHS trust, was brought up in a world of deafness from a genetic condition that was passed down through generations.
After initially resisting wearing aids and learning to lipread she was prescribed NHS hearing aids after starting full-time employment in her early 20s, so that it enhanced her ability to hear what was going on around her.
But it wasn’t until she reached out to Amplifon six months ago that the full benefit of wearing a hearing aid had a massive impact on her life.
She said: “It has been completely life changing. I am so glad I made the move after all of these years.”
Previously, when she was training and competing as an athlete she had to take out her hearing aids – something that had obvious implications. But now she is able to continue to wear her new aid when she is taking part in her sporting activities.
Caroline added: “With my previous hearing aids when I was among a group of people I really had to focus on one particular person speaking. The concentration it needed made me tired and at night I really suffered fatigue.”
Caroline now wears a Starkey Evolv AI hearing aid, supplied by Amplfion, which provides clearer sound, less background noise, and endless personalised adjustments. It is expertly designed to automatically deliver realistic sound quality in every environment so you can hear and enjoy life.
She said: “The aid is fairly complex but the audiologist at Amplifon has been fantastic by making individual adjustments over three or four visits to suit my personal needs.”
Caroline, who is a member of two cycling clubs and is attending a lowland leader course, was first attracted to Amplifon when she saw their unique free trials offered on social media.
She said: “Until then I had never thought about paying for hearing aids but I decided to take up the offer of a free trial and see if they could give me more than my NHS aids could give me.
“And it’s not until you test them in every single environment that you realise how good they are."
“For instance, I attend a lot of meetings and my biggest challenge has always been in social groups where there’s lots of noise. Even when I have distinguished the right voice to concentrate on it has always been really tiring and hard work because if I wasn’t focussing I could lose the conversation. Now, all that has changed.
“I feel re-energised because my Amplifon hearing aid has given me the ability to be able to join in those things without needing to concentrate as hard and I’m not as tired anymore.”
Caroline added: “It’s made a phenomenal difference in my social interactions. As I had got older I had started to withdraw from social activities but now all of that has changed.
“I can lip read incredibly well so one-to-one conversations were always okay but it was the group situation that was difficult.
“Also, I can now hear things happening behind me so if someone calls out to me I can hear them. And, obviously, that is important from a safety aspect.”
An initial issue for Caroline was that because her ears are so small the first hearing aid Amplifon tried after taking a mould was one that fit but was without WIFI which was an aspect she wanted.
However, Amplifon overcame the problem and were able to fit an aid with the WIFI component.
She said: “The service I received was fantastic and the audiologist said I could go back as often as I like. They have given me lots of advice from how I need to clean them and look after them. They have been phenomenal.”
