Susan began her full time career with Welsch Hearing Aid Company in December, 1984 as the Office Manager. On March 5, 1985, she became a State Licensed Hearing Instrument Specialist. In 1994, she passed her National Board for Certification Examination.
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In August of 2022, Congress passed a bill with bi-partisan support mandating that inserted button cell batteries be sealed in child-proof packaging after the horrific death of an 18-month-old child who had swallowed what’s commonly known as coin battery.
These batteries are often used in remote controls, greeting cards, and hearing aids.
The law, known as Reese’s Law, was named after a little girl who swallowed a remote control battery and the electrical current and chemicals from the battery burned a hole in her esophagus and trachea, requiring multiple emergency surgeries during her two-month stay in the hospital before she died in December of 2020.
“We noticed a button battery missing in our home and so we rushed her to the ER,” her mother Trista Hamsmith said. “We had countless scopes, surgeries, scans, and sedation,” she said. “It was 47 days from the day it started until the day she passed.”
From 2011 through 2021, Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) has recorded 27 deaths and an estimated 54,300 injuries treated in emergency rooms associated with ingested or inserted button cell or coin batteries. Nancy Cowles, the executive director of Kids in Danger, an organization that works to promote product safety for children, says the new law will save lives. “There are around 3,500 incidents a year in which children, usually children, swallow button batteries. Not all of those result in serious injury, but many of them do.”
However, many in the hearing aid industry worry that the more secure child-proof packaging could pose an obstacle for hearing aid users as seniors often struggle with dexterity issues and these batteries are quite small.
Audiologists and Hearing Aid Specialists alike are concerned that seniors may not change their batteries or open all their batteries at once to make them more accessible, which would negate the effects of the child-safe packaging. Others have commented online that they think this new law will lead to more hearing aid users opting for rechargeable hearing aids.
Nevertheless, the new packaging was tested rigorously by CPSC to prove accessibility to seniors, and the CPSC delayed enforcement of the law until this March to allow hearing aid manufacturers time to roll out the new security measures.
“In designing the new packaging, we’ve also been careful to ensure that existing hearing aid users can access our batteries quickly and easily. In the tests that we commissioned, 99% of seniors were able to open the packs for the first time in less than a minute, and this time was halved on the second attempt.”
Paula Brinson-Pyke, director of marketing for Rayovac
In the testing, seniors were given instructions on how to open the packaging:
- Remove the drained battery from your device.
- Sit down with your battery pack and a pair of scissors, ideally over a table.
- Carefully use the scissors to cut and open the pack and access the hearing aid batteries one by one. Think of this as like cutting a slice of a pizza.
- Remove the hearing aid battery from the package.
- Remove the tab and let sit for five minutes to allow air to activate the battery.
- Insert the battery into your device with the flat side facing up and close the door.
Hearing Aid users can also watch this short YouTube video for a visual demonstration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Si6aKj-1doQ&t=1s
Here are a few tips and tricks when handling button batteries:
- Leave new batteries sealed in their original packages.
- Plan and schedule convenient days and times when you will access your hearing aid batteries – maybe you can enlist support from a family member or friend if needed.
- Do not remove the tab on your zinc air battery until you are ready to use it.
- Store batteries at room temperature.
- When handling your hearing aid battery, you should always do so with clean, dry hands. This prevents potential corrosion of the battery, which could affect performance.
- A fresh battery has more power than an aged battery. Therefore, review expiration dates on the back of battery packages prior to purchase.
- Store batteries in places that cannot be reached by infants or children.
Dispose of used batteries safely. You should not put your used batteries in the waste bin. Hearing aid batteries can be recycled the same way as other batteries. You should check with your local government on how they recommend you dispose of your used batteries.