The New Year is an exciting time to reflect and set goals. Committing to protecting your hearing health is a great way to invest in your wellness. You can start with the simple step of scheduling an appointment for a hearing test! Benefits of Hearing Aids Hearing aids are the most common way hearing loss is treated. These are electronic …
Supporting A Loved One with Hearing Loss in a Nursing Home
It can be difficult to care for your loved ones in a nursing home, especially during this extended COVID-19 pandemic. Communication is often secondhand by administration and staff, so it’s hard to know the best ways to support a loved one. It’s important to note that hearing loss is the third most common medical condition in the US affecting 1 …
Loud Movies & Noise-Induced Hearing Loss
Have you ever left a movie theater on a quiet night and noticed your ears ringing? That sound usually goes away by the morning for most people, but that doesn’t mean that hearing damage hasn’t taken place. Despite regulatory efforts, movie theaters have quite a wide range of maximum volume levels, as do the master audio tracks of blockbuster movies. …
Know Your Rights with Hearing Loss
By federal law, people with hearing loss are guaranteed access to many services, particularly in the public sector, but many often do not know exactly what services are available. This informational asymmetry can lead to confusion and a lack of service provision. Particularly when interfacing with public officials and bureaucracies, hearing loss should be no reason not to get the …
How Loud is Too Loud for Kids?
Technology is more integrated into our daily lives now more than ever before. This is especially true for kids who use a range of electronic devices in school and at home. Whether it is using different applications to learn in class, watching cartoons, playing video games, or listening to music; time on devices has rapidly increased. It is important to …
How Smoking & Drinking May Affect Hearing
Our lifestyle choices unquestionably influence hearing loss. Hearing loss rates are closely tied to how often one uses hearing protection and avoids loud exposure. But there are also several indirect causes of hearing loss that may surprise you. Hearing loss has been linked to health issues such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes. Although the exact reason is unknown, we know …
A Link between Hearing Loss & Diabetes
Hearing loss, like other physical or medical disorders, can be complicated by comorbidities. A comorbidity is an occurrence of two chronic diseases simultaneously or one or more other disorders simultaneously as a primary disorder. Cardiovascular illness, dementia, balance difficulties, and diabetes are all comorbidities of hearing loss. While the links between hearing loss and dementia and hearing loss and cardiovascular …
Why Pretending to Hear Doesn’t Help
Have you ever been in a social setting where you are struggling to understand or keep up with the conversation? If so, how did you navigate the interaction? A common strategy that people often use in this context is pretending to hear. This looks like nodding your head or giving verbal cues that you are following along. Pretending to hear …
Know Alzheimer’s Disease: Treat Hearing Loss in September during World Alzheimer’s Month
September is World Alzheimer’s Month! Started in 2012, this global awareness and advocacy campaign focuses on challenging the stigma associated with dementia. Dementia refers to a group of medical conditions that progressively reduce cognitive functions including: thinking, memory, learning, and decision making. Worldwide, 50 million people live with dementia, a number projected to increase. The most common form of dementia …
A Brief History of Hearing Loss
An estimated 48 million people in the U.S. have some degree of hearing loss. This is nearly 1 in 5 people, making hearing loss the third most common, chronic, medical condition that people experience today. Though hearing loss is pervasive, it is often undertreated. Hearing loss usually happens gradually so it can take some time for people to notice changes …