If you have hearing loss, it might come as no surprise that it can be related to psychological distress. The pressure to have a conversation with your family and friends in a noisy restaurant might be enough to ruin your good time for the evening. You might even find yourself avoiding these dinners to skip the hassle of straining to …
Communication At Work: May is Better Hearing and Speech Month!
Last month Alice had a meeting with her supervisor. Her coworkers had been concerned not with her performance at her job, which was excellent, but with her attitude. She had taken to venting her frustrations during work each day, and not only were her coworkers annoyed with the constant negative chatter, they were also concerned for Alice’s own happiness in …
Acupuncture for Hearing Loss & Tinnitus: Does it Really Work?
Acupuncture has been a practice of Chinese medicine, dating as far back as 100 B.C. with claims of treating or relieving symptoms of many diseases, including asthma, back pain, carpal tunnel syndrome, fibromyalgia, mild headaches, migraine headaches, osteoarthritis, sciatica, stroke, and nausea. If these claims don’t seem promising enough already, providers also claim that acupuncture can also be used to …
Hearing Aid Compatible Assistive Listening Devices
If you live with hearing loss perhaps you have come to realize that having the right accommodations can make a huge difference between successful communication and confusion. Sometimes it is just the right environment, with the right lighting so you can read body language, or the right level of quiet so you can hear what others are saying. These days …
Studies on Hearing Loss & Injuries
Hearing loss is a serious matter. When hearing loss is ignored, you become at risk for many dangerous side effects that include depression, irritability, fatigue, and decreased focus, which can lead to accidents. We face harmful noises everyday at work, at home and during recreation. Exposure to any noise over 85 decibels can damage your hearing over time but as …
Ear Infections & Hearing Loss
There are plenty of things you can do to protect your hearing. Aside from wearing hearing protection in hazardously noisy conditions or restricting the use of headphones and earbuds, did you know you could help your hearing through promptly treating any ear infections? The good news is that most ear infections don’t result in loss of hearing, and for those …
Can Hearing Loss Be Cured?
Most hearing loss is sensorineural, which relates to the destruction of so-called hair cells in the inner ear. These hair cells sense sound waves and then relay the information to the brain. As a person’s inner ear loses hair cells, he or she loses the ability to transfer sound signals to the brain to be processed. The only way to …
Conductive Hearing Loss: Signs, Causes, and Treatments
Did you know that there are three main kinds of hearing loss? Sensorineural hearing loss affects the cells in the inner ear, conductive hearing loss affects the outer and middle ear, and mixed hearing loss is a combination of both sensorineural and conductive hearing loss. When you think about hearing loss you probably imagine sensorineural hearing loss, caused by exposure …
How Hearing Loss May Affect Your Job
Anyone with hearing loss will recall a time when communication became an issue. Perhaps it was a question that was not heard and went unanswered or a key piece of information that was not received. When these moments of miscommunication occur in our homes and close relationships, they can be a nuisance or frustrating. However, when these communication mistakes take …
Hearing Aids Mitigate Cognitive Decline in Older People
People sometimes assume hearing loss is solely an issue with the ears, but in reality, it is far more than that. Hearing loss has a profound effect on your brain, and living with untreated hearing loss often leads to a rapid cognitive decline. When the brain’s auditory centers produce fewer inputs, you will start losing cells that aren’t being used. …