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What are reasonable expectations for the patient and family members of newhearing aid users? Certainly the patient should hear better. If they are not thehearing professional should be contacted immediately to find out why they arenot. The family of hearing aid patients need to understand that their loved onehas developed deep habits of saying “What?…

From time to time, hearing aids will stop working.  If that problem is a serious reason, it will need to be repaired.  The discussion about repairs, in and out of warranty, versus the idea of buying new hearing aids is a bigger topic for a different article.  I tell my patients when they are taking…

The reason underneath hearing loss has a lot to do with whether or not the hearing loss is permanent or can be reversed. One simple reason that is sometimes overlooked is excess buildup of wax that causes blockage in the ear canal. Wax blockage is an obstruction of the ear canal with wax, also called…

During our virus closures and movement restrictions I thought it would be a perfect timeto educate our hearing impaired community members and their families about afreeservice that is available to bring closed captioning to your telephones. Thanks totheAmericans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), fundsare set aside to help people with…

If you’re researching hearing aids for the first time, you’ve probably come across terms that describe hearing aids which you aren’t familiar with. While many of these terms are proprietary or exclusive to each individual manufacturer and named very differently, some of the generic terms that all manufacturers use to describe their hearing aids are…

Cochlear Implants. While hearing aids are the most commonly used solution for people withhearing loss, some people are better served by cochlear implants. Because Idon’t sell or service cochlear implants my knowledge is through reading anddiscussions with other professionals and some implant patients I have known. Ichose this topic because it is an important option…

The following story is repeated with permission. One of my patients was in for a recent service call and made the comment, “I wish I had purchased a more powerful hearing set because these seemed to have reached a limit for me.” I realized I had failed to properly educate this patient or they had…

The internet has a number of excellent hearing loss simulators.  If you have access to a computer with the internet you might visit www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbBZjT7nuoA In a practical reality these simulators are for people who love someone with hearing loss to help them understand what their family member or friend is experiencing. If a person has hearing loss…

A real hearing test is done with an electronic machine called an audiometer. Before scheduling that kind of appointment, maybe you would like to take yourself or someone you love through a “symptoms” quiz.  I am adapting and expanding the questions from the February 2014 edition of Consumer Reports.  These questions are very important as…

Last month I wrote some details about our brain’s function in the hearing process.  Here are the foundational comments from my August article. “Acoustic energy vibrates down the ear canal against the ear drum, it is then changed into mechanical energy as it passes through the three small bones of the middle ear. Next it…