hearing loss
Worn out by the struggle to hear? The effort of trying to follow a conversation tends to leave people with hearing loss exhausted, anxious and plenty stressed. Yet, the ties between hearing loss and fatigue are all too often under-appreciated by patients and medical specialists alike. One strains to hear, to speech-or lipread and to…
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Loss is loss Grieving one’s hearing? Don’t the notions of Grief and Loss only apply to losing living creatures, like people and pets? Not exactly. I certainly got a crash course on the issue when a sudden hearing loss totally upended my life and changed it forever. “Loss is loss,” a nurse once told me…
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What did you say? Old problem gets a name An almost standard comment from people with hearing loss goes like this: “If only I could turn the speakers’ voices up louder, I would be able to hear and understand better over the room noise.” The issue of not understanding speech in background sound is known…
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Virtual technology for communication access People with hearing challenges tend to dread the Holiday Season, the peak socializing time of the year. It is a frustrating and even depressing time when many feel excluded from conversations and activities as they struggle to hear and understand in noisy places. However, new ways of communicating might actually…
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Got telecoils in the hearing aids but no loop at home with which to use them? Learn about the induction neckloop, which could be a very helpful tool for those who do not have Bluetooth hearing aid connectivity for streaming over short distances. What is a neckloop? A basic, non-amplified neckloop is a miniature version of a large loop,…
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Shortcomings in equitable access Although totally necessary, COVID-19 safety precautions have led to serious communication issues for those with hearing challenges ─ over 20 percent of the population. While all customers and clients need equitable access to communication at any time, the Coronavirus has uncovered the fact that many businesses have few if any ways of…
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For those with hearing loss the struggle to understand speech, especially in background sound is a huge obstacle to communication. People tend to describe what they hear as gibberish. It turns out that the situation can be improved upon by getting hearing help and by becoming better, active listeners. Listening: the secret sauce for good…
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Communications challenges continue The COVID-19 threat is not going away anytime soon. Those with hearing loss have experienced added limitations to communication during these times of social distancing, self-quarantine, masked outings and conversations. Being talked to through plastic or glass partitions further worsens the muffling of sounds. Speechreading (lipreading) has become impossible, which deepens the…
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An overlooked but possible COVID-19 complication It is well-known that many viruses are capable of causing hearing damage and hearing loss. The list of culprits, includes viruses that cause measles, mumps, rubella, the CMV virus (CytoMegaloVirus) as well as viruses in the Herpes family. However, as reports of ear and hearing problems are published, the…
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By now, it is well known that repeated and prolonged exposures to excessively loud sound damage and age ears and hearing permanently and prematurely. This is called Noise-induced Hearing Loss. The damage is cumulative but it is preventable. So, how loud is it? Many people are willing and eager to protect themselves from sound damage but they do…
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