Taking Turns Talking: Grownups in Groups
By Kathi Mestayer Wait your turn! It’s second nature at the bank drive-thru, the gas station, the ski lift, the doctor’s office. And a mixed blessing. Some people, like me, really hate waiting in line and have to take deep breaths and make a concerted effort to entertain ourselves. In contrast, the…
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Winning the War against Hearing Loss, Part 3: Overcoming Background Noise
by Bob Martin, AuD When we help people hear well, they radiate joy. My patient Kim is a perfect example. She is a young mother of three who came to me recently in tears. Her husband had lost his job and they were about to lose their house. “I know how to make money,”…
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Winning the War Against Hearing Loss: Part 1 of 10
What a world! The nightly news programs hammer us with an endless stream of ugliness. But, for all the bad news that is reported, I believe there is an equal amount of good news, even if not all of it gets into the media. The good news often tells the stories of medical miracles: People…
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You Hear with Your Brain, So Make Sure to Exercise It
We are witnessing huge advances in the world of science and technology. Progress has been especially dramatic in the areas of electronics and applied genetics. For example, the latest iPhone, which fits easily into your shirt pocket, has a capacity far beyond what was available in a desktop computer when this century began. Meanwhile, scientists…
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Patients Will Enjoy Helping Design a Listening Program Just for Them
This week, in our continuing series of posts about creating and using listening programs, I would like to talk about helping hearing aid wearers hear better in “fun” places, such as bowling alleys. Many years ago, when remote controls first came onto the market, I had a patient who wanted to hear when she went…
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How to Reduce Background Noise and Improve Speech Understanding
In my last couple of blog posts I discussed the use of “listening programs” to improve hearing. Today I want to continue this discussion and cover the difficult topic of “How to enhance word understanding and simultaneously reduce background noise.” When I tackle this problem, hearing when it is noisy, I first ask myself, is…
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