The Audiology Condition

Preliminary research from Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute in San Francisco suggests certain vision problems in older adults is associated with a 50% higher risk of hearing loss.  Here is a summary of the research by Marilyn Schneck and colleagues:   446 adults with a mean age of 79.9 years had their hearing screened and underwent an extensive series of visual

This post, originally published in April of 2017, is “most read and shared,” though perhaps not “best.” Despite United’s persistent efforts to discourage air travel for people who are teenagers, wear leggings, or have assigned seats, it’s likely that many readers have a trip planned by air in the near future. Those who wear hearing aids may wonder what’s in

This post, originally published on September 6, 2017. was the most read post in The Audiology Condition this year. Starting in 2010 Dr Frank Lin and colleagues commenced publishing results of studies of hearing loss and dementia, arriving at essentially the same conclusions using two paradigms and two different, large subject cohorts.  At the time, a Huffington Post article provided a good

This is the third and final post in the short series on why some voices are difficult to hear, even with hearing aids. The first two posts considered aging effects on voicing and some exercises to mitigate those effects. Today’s post veers in a different direction – to voicing and voicing aberrations among the young. You’d think Young Voices were

Last post described the characteristics of aging voices:  tremulous, changing pitch, reduced vocal endurance and projection, reduced volume.  Not everyone who is aging experiences those voice effects and today’s post looks at ways to avoid them.   This issue arose because of a phone conversation The Audiologist had with her 80ish-patient recently, in which she initially mistook him for a

A day scarcely passes in an audiology practice without a patient fretting that someone they know and like is speaking so softly nowadays that they have difficulty hearing them even with hearing aids.  After checking the patient’s hearing aids, The Audiologist typically suggests commonsense strategies: Look at the person when they’re speaking. Ask them to look at you, too. Sit

A May 2016 post discussed the monologue strategy adopted by some people with hearing loss who choose not to purchase hearing aids, or not to use them even if they make the purchase.  Those people were characterized by their tendency to “speak loud and long, dominating conversations by turning a dialog into a monologue.” That post must have hit a nerve

Recently, we wrote about guidelines for working with patients who experience  Sudden Sensorineural Hearing Loss (SSNHL).  SSNHL is an often-devastating syndrome that takes its victim by surprise and all too often persists even after attempts at treatment.   The Audiologist-Patient relationship is fragile and fraught, in part because of patients’ fears and in part because of the limited scientific information

Sudden hearing loss is one of the most disconcerting events in the lives of patients and audiology practices.  As its name suggests, there is no warning nor is there any way to predict who is as risk.  Typically, the audiologist meets the patient for the first time as the result of this sudden, potentially devastating event.  There is no time

 Starting in 2010 Dr Frank Lin and colleagues commenced publishing results of studies of hearing loss and dementia, arriving at essentially the same conclusions using two paradigms and two different, large subject cohorts.  At the time, a Huffington Post article provided a good summary for lay readers of two studies loosely referred to as The Johns Hopkins Study and The Health ABC