Earbuds. Using earbuds during a phone call gives you the ability to hear the conversation with both ears. Ear buds can also help  limit the interference of background noise.

Speaker phone. Using the speaker phone on your cell also give you the ability to hear the conversation with both ears. We suggest using this option while you are at home or in a private setting. Using speaker phone while you are in the grocery store might raise some eyebrows from people near you depending on the conversation.

Video phone calls. Being able to see the speaker while they talk can greatly improve speech understanding. You will be able to see the movement of the speaker’s mouth and facial expressions while they speak.

Stream your calls. If your hearing aids are able to stream your cell phone conversations directly to your hearing aids, use this feature. Your conversations will be much easier to understand.

Positioning. If you wear behind the ear hearing aids, you need to hold your cell phone at a different angle and a little higher than normal. While wearing this style of hearing aid, sound enters the unit that sits behind your ear before it gets fed into your ear canal. So, instead of positioning the speaker of your phone to your ear canal, try positioning it to the part of your hearing aid that sits behind your ear.

To find out how hearing aids can help you better understand conversations, or for more cell phone hearing tips, call our office at (814) 941-7770 to schedule a consultation with one of our Audiologists.

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The importance of early hearing treatment is usually an afterthought until it is too late. Most people tend to delay treatment of their hearing loss until they cannot communicate. This happens even in the best of listening situations. On average, hearing aid users wait over 10 years after their initial diagnosis to be fit with their first set of hearing aids.

Several studies have documented the impact of untreated hearing loss. An often cited survey was commissioned by the National Council on Aging in 1999. This nationwide survey of nearly 4,000 adults with hearing loss and their significant others showed significantly higher rates of depression, anxiety, and other psycho-social disorders. This is in individuals who were not wearing hearing aids. This survey looked at the positive benefits of amplification. It additionally showed that hearing aid use positively affected quality of life for both the hearing aid wearer and his or her significant others.

Delaying treatment can also make it harder for the brain to customize to hearing again. The brain can get overwhelmed with being exposed to all the sounds it was missing out on. Starting treatment for hearing loss when a hearing loss is first noticed will give the brain time to adjust.

Early and careful evaluation and treatment show great promise in mitigating the consequences of hearing loss on long-term health and quality of life.

For more information on the importance of early hearing treatment, visit: HealthyHearing.com

To Request an Appointment: https://www.lemmeaudiology.com/request-an-appointment/

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Dr. Frank Lin, an assistant professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and the university’s Bloomberg School of Public Health, and his colleague Dr. Luigi Ferrucci found that people with a 25-decibel hearing loss (classified as mild) were nearly three times more likely to have a history of falling. Every additional 10-decibels of hearing loss increased the chances of falling by 1.4 fold. This finding still held true, even when researchers accounted for other factors linked with falling. These factors are including age, sex, race, cardiovascular disease and vestibular function. Even excluding participants with moderate to severe hearing loss from the analysis didn’t change the results.

Lin, an otologist and epidemiologist, says among the possible explanations for the link is that people who can’t hear well might not have good awareness of their overall environment. This makes tripping and falling more likely.

Another reason hearing loss might increase the risk of falls, Lin adds, is cognitive load, in which the brain is overwhelmed with demands on its limited resources.

“Gait and balance are things most people take for granted, but they are actually very cognitively demanding,” Lin says. “If hearing loss imposes a cognitive load, there may be fewer cognitive resources to help with maintaining balance and gait.”

Treating hearing loss gives a person better spatial and environmental awareness, leading to less accidental falls. Treatment also relieves one’s high demand of interpreting speech and sound and gives more resources to maintain balance.

For more information:

Johns Hopkins Medicine

HealthyHearing.com

Vestibular Balance Disorder | LAA Center for Balance

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Hearing aids are primarily useful in improving the hearing and speech comprehension of people who have hearing loss that results from damage to the small sensory cells in the inner ear, called hair cells. This type of hearing loss is called sensorineural hearing loss. The damage often occurs as a result of disease, aging, or injury from noise or certain medicines.

A hearing aid magnifies sound vibrations entering the ear. Surviving hair cells detect the larger vibrations and convert them into neural signals that pass along to the brain. The greater the damage to a person’s hair cells, the more severe the hearing loss, and the greater the hearing aid amplification needed to make up the difference.

Digital hearing aids convert sound waves into numerical codes, similar to the binary code of a computer, before amplifying them. Because the code also includes information about a sound’s pitch or loudness, the aid can have special programming to amplify some frequencies more than others. Digital circuitry gives an audiologist more flexibility in adjusting the aid to a user’s needs and to certain listening environments. These aids can also have programming focus on sounds coming from a specific direction.

Hearing aid technology is always improving. In the past, hearing aids would amplify every sound around you. Today’s hearing aids can assist you with understanding speech in noisy situations, stream sounds directly from your television, and even connect to your cell phone.

Find out more information about technology addressing hearing:

National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders

Ask Questions:

Contact Lemme Audiology – Your Local Experts

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The primary objective for all currently-available tinnitus treatment options is to lower the perceived burden, allowing the patient to live a more comfortable, unencumbered, and content life.

There are several well-established therapies for patients struggling with severe, chronic tinnitus.

General Wellness: The perceived intensity of this symptom can fluctuate depending on many factors, including the patient’s overall well-being. There are simple (and often free!) things patients can do that may alleviate some of the burden.

Hearing Aids: Tinnitus overwhelmingly connects to some level of hearing loss. Augmenting the reception and perception of external noise can often provide relief from the internal sounds.

Sound Therapies: Tinnitus is a non-auditory internal sound. But patients can use real external noise to counteract their perception and reaction. Sound masking can cover the sound of tinnitus, while more advanced therapies may provide more robust relief.

Behavioral Therapies: Tinnitus can generate strong, negative emotions like anxiety, depression, and anger. Patients can learn to control their emotional reactions and thereby disassociate it from painful negative behavioral responses.

Drug Therapies: There are currently no FDA-approved drugs specifically for this symptom. However, there are pharmacological options to address the stress, anxiety, and depression that is caused by (and can sometimes exacerbate) it.

TMJ Treatments: In some cases, tinnitus is caused by physiological functions or disorders within the body. In these less-common situations, addressing the baseline physical cause may eliminate or drastically reduce symptoms.

Find out more information:

ATA.org

Request an Appointment:

Request an Appointment | Online Booking

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Studies suggest that older people with hearing loss are more likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease and dementia, and hearing loss can be associated with a faster rate of cognitive decline. Why is this?

Researchers have several theories:

1. One has to do with cognitive load. With untreated hearing loss, the brain gets overworked by constantly straining to understand speech and sound. An overworked brain doesn’t work efficiently.
2. Another has to do with brain structure. Brain cells can shrink from lack of stimulation, including the parts of the brain that receive and process sound.
3. The last theory is social isolation. When a person has trouble hearing conversations and socializing, they may prefer staying home instead. However, the more isolated a person becomes, the less stimuli their brain receives.

A 2016 study analyzing health insurance claims of 154,783 seniors concluded that hearing impairment increases the risk of dementia and that to some extent this happens regardless of medical treatment. A 2017 article in Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience cited two studies that found people wearing hearing aids improved their performance on cognitive tests. The article said hearing aids, when prescribed at the beginning of age-related hearing loss, can postpone cognitive side effects.

Find out more information:

HealthyHearing.com

Oticon.com

Request an Appointment:

Request an Appointment | Online Booking

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