Tag: hearing

6 Important Factors to Understanding Hearing and Hearing Aids for Caregivers

Understanding Hearing Loss and the Importance of Hearing Aids
The human ear is an important organ in the body responsible for hearing and balance. When hearing is partially or totally impaired our ability to communicate with others can become difficult and frustrating leading to relationship breakdowns, isolation and depression. There is no respecter of age, ethnicity, culture, class, race or sex when it comes to hearing loss. Hearing loss affects not only the person diagnosed but it also loved ones, family members, friends, co- workers and caregivers. Therefore learning about hearing, hearing loss and different solutions that bridge the communication gap whether it is a hearing aid, assistive listening device, lip- reading, sign language, written messages, text messaging, video conferencing et cetera help us to understand and communicate better with the hearing impaired person.
“Next to the eye the ear is the most important of human sense organs. It allows us to communicate and to exchange ideas“
This section is a basic look at understanding hearing by reviewing:

  1.  What is hearing?
  2. What is a hearing loss?
  3.  Anatomy of the Ear
  4.  Importance of a hearing test
  5.  What are hearing aids good for and how they work.
  6. Communication Cues
  1. What is hearing?
    Hearing is the ability to perceive sound when it is conducted through the ear. When someone has a hearing loss that ability to hear sound is reduced because there is impairment in one or more parts of the ear. A person with hearing loss is called Hard of Hearing. Hard of Hearing does not mean the person is Deaf Identified but they have some reduction in hearing that can range from mild to profound. Whereas someone who is Deaf Identified abilities to communicate is visually based and sometimes also can be sound based supported. In other words, a person who identifies themselves as deaf can lip-read, use sign language, look at body language, facial language or written language to communicate and can use a hearing device. (Canadian Hard of Hearing Association)

To be continued in next post

Carry- on Tinnitus Step#2

Step #2

Now that you’ve seen the Audiologist or the Hearing Instrument Specialist and they’ve given you a hearing test what is there left to do?

Talk…..

The hearing professional will discuss the results of the hearing test.  You may or may not have hearing loss but you may still suffer from tinnitus.

How is that possible?

Don’t people with hearing loss all have tinnitus?

It is true about 90% of people with tinnitus also have hearing loss and tinnitus affects 1 in 5 people. What about the rest of us?

Let’s work backwards with some basic information about tinnitus.

Tinnitus or some pronounce it tin-eye-tus or tin-a-tus is not a disease but a symptom resulting from a number of causes most common is hearing loss but others are: ear infections, hearing loss, constant exposure to loud noises, brain tumor, emotional stress, exposure to certain medication , head or neck injury, hypertension, heart disease and earwax to name a few.

There are different types of tinnitus: subjective, objective and pulsatile.  Subjective is the most frequent type and it is explained as hearing sound when there is no external sound and it can present itself as ringing, clicking, hissing or buzzing; some people even experience hearing music.

Tinnitus also triggers an emotional response in each individual in unique portions. In other words, tinnitus affects everyone differently and their reactions are all different. Some people can ignore the noise in their ears, whereas others are frustrated and even can be emotionally distraught. No two people are the same.

So where do you go from here?

Counselling is needed and your hearing professional is going to be able to help you with that.

Find out more next week.

If anyone has any questions, please e-mail me.

Until next time…