Ben loves to swim with his brother, so he jumped at the chance to try out the new Aqua Accessory from Cochlear!  Ben put the accessory through its paces with his twin processors, and has a bunch of pointers for us at cochlearimplantHELP.com.

For gentle water activity, such as bathing, showers, or hot tubs, you can just hang the earhook on your ear.  If you are in a larger body of water, such as a lazy river at the water park, you may want to secure the Aqua Accessory with the straps of swim goggles, or even use a swim cap.  A clip attaching the hole in the Aqua Accessory to a piece of clothing provides extra security.

For active water sports, a swim cap is really important.  You can swim all day long, and maybe dive into the water head first.  But even the swim cap isn’t sufficient to secure the Aqua Accessory if you jump into the pool, or go down a slide feet first at a water park that ends in a splash pool.  Water coming up from below gets under the flaps and tends to pull them away from your head.

Ben demonstrates how to set up the Aqua Accessory, and gives some tips based on his first trial run! Make sure to click on the gear icon at the bottom right and choose the best resolution, and full-screen view for the best experience.

Ben’s extra tips:

• Don’t try to squeeze all the air out of the bag.  With some air in the bag, it will float.  Test whether it floats before using it.
• A brightly colored bag would be easier to spot if it comes off.
• Try putting colored Post-it^® notes in the bag.  The bag isn’t very transparent, though.
• Go swimming at a pool where bathing caps are required!

As of October 2012, the Aqua Accessory is only available in Canada.