“The best way for me to understand the difficulties my patients encountered would be for me to spend every waking moment with them,” said Dr. Kurt Pfaff, an audiologist. “But, that's just not practical.”

A new invention is now making this possible. It's called a Sound Activity Meter, or SAM. It's as small as a lapel pin, and can discretely travel with patients to map their listening situations throughout the day. It's helping 57-year-old John McNeill.

“I thought my listening situations were the same throughout the day, “ said patient John McNeill. “I would've never guessed there were so many different levels of noise in my life.”

SAM captures and measures the different levels of sound a person is exposed to - especially critical in situations that are challenging for people with hearing loss such as busy streets, social gatherings and restaurants.

“As an audiologist, it's important that I understand a patient's hearing problem,” said Dr. Pfaff. “But it's equally important I understand the listening environment in which they're dealing with this problem.”

It helped identify what would help John achieve the best quality of life.

“It's as if this hearing aid was custom made to my lifestyle,” said John.

One huge challenge for those with hearing aids is that they often have trouble hearing one individual in a noisy environment. SAM can help track those hearing challenges to make a more effective hearing aid. For more information, go to www.oticonus.com.

By Mona Khanna, M.D., M.P.H., CBS 11
http://cbs11tv.com/health/local_story_044163026.html