Category: Hearing

How do we treat tinnitus?

Posted on by nextAdmin1

Hi again, Audiology fam!

We at Andros hope you are all healthy and relatively happy, and continuing to #maskup as we all find
our way through the current landscape.

Welcome to part TWO of our tinnitus series – oh, how time flies when we’re all having fun (sincerely hope). Today we’re going to be discussing the various ways that we (your neighborhood friendly audiologists) treat and/or manage tinnitus.

First, I’m going to get this statement out of the way: you won’t find any magic bullet cure here that will immediately disappear your tinnitus. I am so sorry, but we just aren’t there yet. HOWEVER (and you see, I used the capital letters to indicate emphasis because that is a major however), there are many many many ways to manage tinnitus successfully and make life better for people who suffer from tinnitus.

The first type of management strategy we’ll discuss is the use of sound therapies. Sound therapies
involve changing a person’s perception of or reaction to their tinnitus, and they do this in a variety of ways. This can mean reducing the prominence of the tinnitus in relation to background noise by partially or completely covering your tinnitus with a sound of your own choosing, using soothing sounds to reduce the stress associated with tinnitus, using an interesting sound in order to distract yourself, or increasing the level of background sound to promote your brain’s habituation or acceptance of your tinnitus over time.

It should be noted that there is an insufficient amount of research available to fully support the use of sound therapies in the treatment of tinnitus, particularly because there are many different ways to implement sound therapy. However, many authors have seen high anecdotal rates of success with different types of sound therapy, and it is still considered a good option for patients with chronic, bothersome tinnitus, as long as realistic expectations are taken into consideration.

The devices used for sound therapy were, at one point, stand-alone devices; purely made for sound generation. Those devices still exist and are available, but at this point, most hearing aids are now what’s considered “combination” devices, and have tinnitus maskers that come standard in many, if not all of the current offerings. As stated in previous blogs regarding this subject – hearing loss is a common comorbidity (pal) of tinnitus, and if we’re treating the hearing loss with a hearing aid, it only makes sense to get a device that is also capable of sound generation. Many people find that the act of treating the hearing loss, and giving the brain something else to listen to (amplification! Birdsong! The ticking of your car turn signal!) helps to minimize their tinnitus, without having to do any other type of sound generation, but more options is better than no options. A very common type of sound therapy that many people (including the friendly neighborhood audiologist writing this article) come to on their own without having to be coached is something called sound enrichment. Sound enrichment is the use of sound in the background during the day or going to sleep to help distract from your tinnitus. Many people use music, podcasts, or even a common household box fan for this task – it is an easy and simple way to give your brain a little relief.

Next management technique is also pretty straightforward: counseling and education! Surprisingly, for some people, just knowing what exactly tinnitus is, and potentially why it is happening helps them adjust to their new normal and go from there. If you’ve been following this series from the beginning, then you already have more information about tinnitus than the general public – go you! The goal of patient education is to increase knowledge about tinnitus, which will hopefully help people to cope and manage their reactions to their tinnitus a little better. The level and type of counseling providing will vary based on individual needs – for many patients, a little education will go a long way. For others, the counseling needed may prove to be outside the scope of the audiologist, and a referral to someone who specializes in cognitive-behavioral therapy (a type of therapy that focuses on reframing thought patterns and behaviors) may be necessary. This does not mean the work you’ve done with your audiologist has failed – this means that you are continuing on the path to better quality of life with tinnitus, and just need someone else to guide you along the path for a little while.

Another subset of tinnitus management strategies include guided tinnitus protocols, where the audiologist and the patient work through a series of prescribed activities and counseling sessions. There are several currently en vogue, including, but not limited to such protocols as TRT (Tinnitus Retraining Therapy), or PTM (Progressive Tinnitus Management). The guided tinnitus protocol favored by Andros Audiology and Hearing Aid Center is a protocol called the Tinnitus Activities Therapy (TAT), which was developed by the University of Iowa. The Tinnitus Activities Therapy integrates sound therapy (see above) with counseling (also see above) and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (also see above. Gee, I’m thorough). There are four major components or aspects to this form of tinnitus management, each with its own series of activities and counseling to move through: thoughts and emotions, hearing and communication, sleep, and concentration. While the TAT protocol has not been studied systematically, because it is a more modern protocol, there is evidence backing each component used in TAT (sound therapy, counseling, and CBT, as previously discussed).

And with that, we close out our THIRD tinnitus discussion! Next time, we’ll be discussing some tinnitus odds and ends, a few things that are important to note, but don’t really fit in the previous categories.

I hope you all are having a wonderful time taking this wild ride into tinnitus education with me!

Until next time, please stay safe, be well, and as always, remember that Andros Audiology and Hearing
Aid Center is here to help.

Tinnitus 101 – Part 1

Posted on by Andros Audiology

Hi Audiology folk!

Here’s hoping that as of this writing you are all safe and continuing to social distance as the beautiful Minnesota winter descends upon us! If you remember, our last letter to the public discussed the basics of what tinnitus is, how to say it, etc. If you don’t remember – see below!

Here is a part one of four part series on Tinnitus. For this publication, we’re going to dive a little deeper, and discuss how tinnitus is assessed, or measured.

Tinnitus is a highly individualized and subjective disorder – every person experiences their tinnitus in a different way. Some people hear whistling, some hear “crickets”, this audiologist hears a high-pitched ringing (a classic) pretty much all the time. Every person will describe the sensation in a way that is specific to them – so how do we quantify the tinnitus? How do we establish how much of an issue any one person is having with it?

The initial evaluation will look very similar to the initial evaluation for a hearing loss. The reason for this is simple – 90% of people who have tinnitus also have an underlying sensorineural hearing loss. So the first steps are going to look the same.

Step One

First up is a thorough intake form, and complete case history. The intake form may include a screening questionnaire to determine your perception of your tinnitus and/or hearing loss – in order to begin assessing the tinnitus and guide a course for treating it, first we have to know where to start, and questionnaires help us along that path. A tinnitus case history should include how long the tinnitus has been present, how often it occurs, if it is in both ears or just one, if you have a history of noise exposure, and how much you feel the tinnitus is impacting your day-to-day life.

Step Two

Next up is a diagnostic audiologic evaluation, which sounds scary, but is actually pretty straightforward. It includes otoscopy (your friendly neighborhood audiologist is going to look in your ears), a hearing test (to determine if there is any underlying hearing loss accompanying the tinnitus) that includes pure-tone air conduction (under headphones), bone conduction (using a bone oscillator), and word understanding testing (repeat after us!). If indicated, your audiologist may also test the movement of your eardrums with something called a tympanogram – this is to make sure there is no fluid hanging out behind your eardrums where it certainly does not belong.

Now, if you’ve already done some research on tinnitus, or gone down the various rabbit holes about it on the internet, you may have heard of something called psychoacoustic evaluation. Psychoacoustic evaluation with regards to tinnitus can come in many different forms, all of which require some attempt to quantify the tinnitus – either by matching its pitch or loudness using the audiometer, or testing the minimum level of noise needed to mask, or cover up, the tinnitus. While these measures can be very useful for helping the patient (you!) feel heard and understood about the severity of their tinnitus, it is important to understand that there is very little hard evidence in favor of the validity of these measures, and they have very little clinical utility. They are also difficult, requiring an intense amount of focus for
an extended period of time, both for the audiologist and the patient, so it’s important that they are used in their appropriate context, when absolutely necessary.

And with that, we’ve finished another section of Tinnitus 101 by Andros Audiology!! I hope that you found this information helpful and instructive, and that you’ll join us again for our next series on tinnitus, which will cover tinnitus treatment or management techniques!

In the meantime, audiology friends, stay safe and be so well!

Hearing Loss + Masks – Communication tips

Posted on by Andros Audiology

Hi Audiology Folks! I hope this blog finds you all enjoying cool breezes, relatively healthy, happy, and
wearing a mask! I know it’s a been a minute since we were able to chat here, but as we make our way into the beautiful Minnesota fall, I’ve got a timely topic to discuss.

This blog will cover a topic at the forefront of many conversations we are having everyday now: how to cope with communicating while wearing a mask. Otherwise known as? We don’t know what we’ve got till it’s gone.

Prior to the need to wear masks while communicating, people, even those people with normal hearing, used visual cues, lipreading, and facial expressions to clue themselves into what people are saying. Every person uses tone, body language, contextual cues to communicate. Above all, the message being conveyed must be audible and accessible to both parties.

The problem is, while masks are so important for our safety and well-being right now, they are also taking away many of these cues. That’s a problem even for those of us with normal hearing, and The presence of a hearing loss severely compounds these difficulties because they are already processing a degraded signal (tone, audibility, or clarity might already be inaccessible). There is no magic fix for this – this is something we are all going to have to deal with together. HOWEVER, (and note the use of capitalization for emphasis because that is a BIG however), your friendly neighborhood audiologist is here with some tips and tricks to try and help everybody out!

Tip 1

  • We all need to harken back to those high school drama or choir days of old and project from the
    diaphragm!
  • This tip is not necessarily about being SO MUCH LOUDER – it is much more about making sure
    you enunciate and speak clearly
  • When in doubt, slow it down, hit those consonants hard, and pretend like you’re talking through cloth – wait! You don’t have to pretend – you ARE talking through cloth!
  • Quick clarification on the use of the word slow with regards to speech: when I say slow, I don’t mean slooooowwww motion where speech becomes meaningless and unintelligible.
  • I mean the following: make sure that each word is separated, that your meaning is clear, and that people have time to absorb your message.

Per the article below, they’ve done the research, and quantified just how much sound pressure we’re losing behind our masks – we can each do our part to try and get some of that sound pressure back safely (read: while wearing a mask).
https://www.hearingreview.com/hearing-loss/health-wellness/how-do-medical-masks-
degrade-speech-reception

Tip 2

  • Going for controversial with this one: crow's feet are a blessing! Smile with your eyes! Those
    laugh lines will let everyone know you're still having a good time behind your mask.

Tip 3

  • For those of you in the audience with hearing loss – many hearing aid manufacturers have now had time to develop recommendations or even updated algorithms to help your hearing aids cope with having to work harder to pick up speech. Talk to your audiologist or hearing instrument specialist about what strategies are available for your specific hearing aids!

Tip 4

  • For those times when someone asks “what”, more than once:
  • Take a deep breath, resist the urge to make your voice uncomfortably loud, and instead, reach for an old communication classic: instead of repeating the phrase that hasn’t worked – rephrase!
  • If you’re really going for extra credit, try to think about the types of sounds that you are using: consonant sounds like “t”, “th”, “s”, “sh” are intrinsically difficult, because they are naturally high- pitched, they carry very little volume, and they don’t use vocal cords to back them up, so they
    are difficult on multiple levels. And that was true before we all put masks on.

Tip 5 – This one is the biggie, Audiology folks

  • The ultimate communication tip your friendly neighborhood audiologist has for everybody today?
  • Be patient, and be kind with one another, because none of this is easy.
  • We are all carving out a path together – let’s pave that path with kindness and mutual respect.

As always – stay safe, be well, and remember that at Andros Audiology and Hearing Aid Center, we’re
here to help.

Getting Used To A Hearing Aid

Posted on by Andros Audiology

Getting Used to a Hearing Aid

Making the decision to improve your hearing is a big step towards improving your overall quality of life. It can take time to get used to hearing aids once you receive them. Every new hearing aid user experiences an adjustment period.  Getting used to a hearing aid takes time, practice, and patience.

The brain

Your brain is the main reason it takes time to get used to a hearing aid. Do you remember the first time you drove a car? It was hard work. In the first place, we had to learn the basics of how to run the car. After that, we learned how to operate the car in traffic. With time and practice, these motions are now automatic. This is because of muscle memory. The brain creates a memory for the movement, and they become automatic. Hearing is no different. The hearing part of our brain needs to practice and thus, build memories of sounds.

Flipping on the light

Getting a hearing aid is like flipping on bright lights after sitting in the dark for a while. At first, sound might seem too loud or bright. Give yourself time to get used to all of the new sounds. The amount of time it takes to get used to a hearing aid is different for everybody. On average, four to six weeks of consistent use will allow all the new sounds to become normal. For some people, time is all it takes.

Small doses or all at once

It is generally recommended that hearing aids are worn consistently, all day, every day. You take them out at night for sleeping, and can’t wear them in the shower. For some people, this is too much in the beginning. Generally, you should try to wear them as much as possible. If needed, you can start small, and work your way up to a full time wear schedule.

When you’ve been missing out, it can be hard to know what is normal. Ask others around you what they are hearing. It is a noisy world and your brain forgets about all the little sounds around you when you have hearing loss. It takes patience, but rest assured that your brain will get used to all that sound again.

Call your hearing aid professional if you are still having troubles getting used to your hearing aids. Hearing aids are adjustable. Levels that worked for one person may not be the right levels for you. Keeping a journal helps. Writing down your experiences can help guide the fine tuning process.

Best of luck as you go out there and start exploring our noisy world with your new hearing aids!

Hearing Aid Batteries- Tips and Tricks

Posted on by Andros Audiology

How to get the most out of your hearing aid batteries

Photo by Hilary Halliwell from Pexels

 

One of the most important parts of your hearing aid is the battery! Did you know that some simple steps can help prolong the life of your hearing aid batteries?

Some background on hearing aid batteries:

Hearing aid batteries are zinc-air and come in 4 sizes (yellow10, brown312, orange13, or blue675). All zinc-air batteries will come with a sticker-like tab on the back. Therefore, you will need to remove the tab prior to using the battery. This tab prevents air from activating the zinc chemical until you need it. Hearing aid batteries are sensitive to extreme temperatures and moisture. If hearing aid batteries touch other metal or other batteries, this can cause them to short out.

How to get the most of your hearing aid batteries:

-Let battery sit un-tabbed one to five minutes prior to using. This allows the power to ramp up before use.

-Store batteries at room temperature in their original packaging.

-Do not store batteries in humid or moist environments.

-Open the battery door of your hearing aid when it is not in use to extend the life of the battery.

Some other tips that can help:

-Keeping track of your battery usage can help you spot changes to the cycle.

-Dispose of dead batteries immediately to avoid mix-ups. You can throw batteries in the trash or take them to a local recycling center.

-Keep spare batteries on you. Your hearing aid batteries are most likely to go out when you are going about your normal day.

Don’t forget that batteries are not safe to be ingested. Keep them out of reach of small children, vulnerable adults, and pets. If batteries are swallowed, see a doctor immediately and call the National Button Battery Hotline at (202) 625-3333.

 

Additionally, if these tips and tricks did not help improve the performance of your devices, please call to visit with our professionals today at (651) 888-7800.

 

How Does the Ear Work?

Posted on by Andros Audiology

How does the ear work? Hearing is an essential sense that we rely on every day for communication and safety. Most people don’t realize how important this sense really is on our day-to-day life. For information on the importance of hearing, check out our previous blog. So, how do we hear? How does the ear really work?

In a normal auditory system, the ear is comprised of 3 distinct sections: the outer ear, the middle ear, and the inner ear. They work together to funnel and capture sound and thus, feed it into our brains. As a result, our brains do all the hard work of understanding.

The Outer Ear

The outer ear is the portion that is visible to us and is typically what people will think of when they think of ears. The portion that captures and therefore funnels sound into the pinna. Sounds are airwaves and these are funneled into the ear canal by the pinna. Once the sound is trapped in the ear canal, everything is directed towards our tympanic membrane, or eardrum. The eardrum is a very thin membrane that vibrates like a drumhead due to sound hitting it.

The Middle Ear

The eardrum marks the start of the middle ear space. This portion of the ear is where we will find the ossicles, or 3 small bones suspended behind the ear drum. Although medical professionals will call these bones the malleus, incus, and stapes, you might know them as the hammer, anvil, and stirrup. The stapes, or stirrup, is the smallest bone in the body! The 3 bones work together to pass the vibration of sound from the eardrum (outer ear) to the cochlear (inner ear). It is important that the middle ear hold air and not fluid. The Eustachian tube works to keep the air pressure equalized so the eardrum can vibrate freely.

The Inner Ear

The stapes, or stirrup, connects to the final part of our ear, the cochlea. The cochlea is snail shaped and resides in the temporal bone of our skull. The cochlea contains fluid and has 2 parts. The snail shaped half deals with the sound waves and hearing, and the other half contains 3 semi-circular canals which we call the vestibular system. We use the 3 semi-circular canals to maintain our balance and sense of motion in space. If something interrupts the fluid in the semi-circular canals, the person will likely become dizzy.

To hear, we use the coiled portion of the cochlea. Once the sound enters the cochlea, it travels like a wave through the fluid inside the ear. The entire length of the cochlea contains outer and inner hair cells. These hair cells will dance and sway as a result of sound waves passing by. The bundles of hair cells have nerves attached that will therefore fire the signal into the brain.

The Bottom Line

The important thing to remember about our hearing is that we really hear with our brains. Our ears capture the sound wave and therefore converts it to a nerve impulse. Our brains need constant practice and should not go without sound for too long.

An audiologist can evaluate how all 3 sections of your ear are working, along with the brain. To schedule an evaluation, call (651) 888-7888.

Tinnitus: What is it? Why do I have it? And What to do about it?

Posted on by Andros Audiology

People who experience tinnitus know that it can be very bothersome. Tinnitus (pronounced ten / ih / tus) is the perception or sensation of hearing sound when no external sound is present. These sounds are typically described as ringing, buzzing, roaring, chirping, or hissing.

The noises may vary in pitch from a low roaring sound to a high-pitched squeal. You can experience tinnitus in one ear, or both ears.

Tinnitus can significantly affect quality of life. Although it affects people differently, if you have tinnitus, you also may experience:

  • -Fatigue
  • -Stress
  • -Sleep problems
  • -Trouble concentrating
  • -Memory problems
  • -Depression, anxiety, and/or irritability

What causes tinnitus? Are there risk factors?

A number of health conditions can cause or worsen tinnitus. In many cases, an exact cause is never found.

A common cause of tinnitus is inner ear cell damage. Tiny, delicate hairs in your inner ear move in relation to the pressure of sound waves. This triggers ear cells to release an electrical signal through a nerve from your ear (auditory nerve) to your brain. Your brain interprets these signals as sound. If the hairs inside your inner ear are bent or broken, they can “leak” random electrical impulses to your brain, causing tinnitus.

Anyone can experience tinnitus, but these factors may increase your risk:

  • -Loud noise exposure. Prolonged exposure to loud noise can damage the tiny sensory hair cells in your ear that transmit sound to your brain. People who work in noisy environments — such as factory and construction workers, musicians, and soldiers — are particularly at risk.
  • -Age. As you age, the number of functioning nerve fibers in your ears declines, possibly causing hearing problems often associated with tinnitus.
  • -Gender. Men are more likely to experience tinnitus.
  • -Smoking. Smokers have a higher risk of developing tinnitus.
  • -Cardiovascular problems. Conditions that affect your blood flow, such as high blood pressure or narrowed arteries (atherosclerosis), can increase your risk of tinnitus.

 How is tinnitus diagnosed?

Because tinnitus is a perception, there is no way to truly test for tinnitus. Your doctor will diagnose tinnitus based on your symptoms, your medical history, and exam findings. A hearing test will likely be ordered to rule out any underlying conditions and to assess if any hearing loss is present. Your doctor may also may want you to have an x-ray, a CT scan, or MRI of your head.

How is tinnitus treated?

To treat your tinnitus, your doctor will first try to identify any underlying, treatable condition that may be associated with your symptoms. If tinnitus is due to a health condition, your doctor may be able to take steps that could reduce or eliminate the noise. Examples include:

  • -Earwax removal. Removing impacted earwax can decrease tinnitus symptoms.
  • -Treating a blood vessel condition. Underlying vascular conditions may require medication, surgery or another treatment to address the problem.
  • -Changing your medication. If a medication you’re taking appears to be the cause of tinnitus, your doctor may recommend stopping or reducing the drug, or switching to a different medication.

In some cases white noise may help suppress the sound so that it’s less bothersome. Your doctor may suggest using an electronic device to suppress the noise. Devices include:

  • -White noise machines. These devices, which produce simulated environmental sounds such as falling rain or ocean waves, are often an effective treatment for tinnitus. You may want to try a white noise machine with pillow speakers to help you sleep. Fans, humidifiers, dehumidifiers and air conditioners in the bedroom also may help cover the internal noise at night.
  • -Hearing aids. These can be especially helpful if you have hearing problems as well as tinnitus.
  • -Tinnitus retraining. A wearable device delivers individually programmed tonal music to mask the specific frequencies of the tinnitus you experience. Over time, this technique may accustom you to the tinnitus, thereby helping you not to focus on it. Counseling is often a component of tinnitus retraining.

There’s little evidence that alternative medicine treatments work for tinnitus. However, some alternative therapies that have been tried for tinnitus include acupuncture, hypnosis, ginkgo biloba, zinc supplements, and B vitamins.

Bottom Line:

If your tinnitus gets worse with stress, make sure to do things that decrease the stress in your life and help you to relax. Try to get enough sleep. Cut down on the amount of alcohol and caffeine you drink, and stop smoking if you smoke. These things can make your tinnitus worse. Avoid listening to loud noises. If you cannot avoid loud noises, use silicone earplugs or earmuffs to protect your ears.

Helpful Resources:

Mayo Clinic: http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/tinnitus/home/ovc-20180349

American Tinnitus Association: https://www.ata.org

Check out our blag regarding Noise Induced Hearing Loss if you suspect you have hearing loss as well.

What is noise induced hearing loss and how to prevent it?

Posted on by Andros Audiology

Over the next few weeks, here at Andros Audiology and Andros ENT & Sleep Center, we are focusing our conversation on noise induced hearing loss. Our patient often ask:

What is noise induced hearing loss?

Noise induced hearing loss is hearing loss that is permanent in nature. Long-term exposure to loud sounds over a prolonged period of time can cause noise induced hearing loss.  Sounds louder than 85 decibels can be damaging to your hearing.  The louder the sound, the less amount of time it takes before damage occurs. For more information regarding how loud is too loud, check out this article by the American Speech-Language and Hearing Association.

So, in the very noisy world we live and work in, what can we do about dangerously loud noises? The good news is that noise induced hearing loss is preventable.  Wearing hearing protection helps to decrease the intensity of noise and ultimately protect your hearing.

Types of hearing protection

There are two different types of hearing protection available.  Earplugs protect hearing by creating an airtight seal in the ear canal.  This type of protection can be purchased very inexpensively at drug stores or sporting goods stores. You can purchase them in bulk through amazon. Custom-fit earplugs can also be a good option. You will need to see an audiologist for custom hearing protection.

The second type of hearing protection is the over-the-ear style.  This style fits over the entire ear and must create a tight seal with adjustable headbands in order to provide sufficient protection.  This type of hearing protection can also be purchased fairly inexpensively at sporting goods stores or through amazon. Some earmuffs even allow normal sounds, like conversation, though but block out loud, dangerous sounds. These can be very useful and can be purchased at sporting good stores like Cabela’s. 

Take home!

The important part of both types of hearing protection is how much, when appropriately fit, the earplug or muff reduces noise.  The better the noise reduction, the more protected you are from harmful noises.

For more information, schedule a hearing evaluation at Andros Audiology at 651-888-7888.

Easy tips and tricks for hearing aid maintenance

Posted on by Andros Audiology

One question Audiologists always get asked about hearing aids is: How long do they last? The short answer is: it depends. The biggest factor in how long a hearing aid lasts is how well they are maintained. That hearing aid maintenance starts at home with some easy steps to clean hearing aids. You should clean hearing aids every day if you want them to last for the long run.

How to clean a hearing aid:

  1. Remove any wax from the surface of the hearing aids

    • Start by inspecting the tip that goes into your ear. Brush or wipe away any wax that you can visually see. Do not use chemicals or water on your hearing aid. If you have a hard shell, wipe the hearing aid with a dry cloth. If you have a soft, rubber tip, brush wax away.

  2.  Inspect the microphone area for anything that might be plugging it

    • If you don’t know where your microphones are, ask your hearing professional at your next visit. On a behind-the-ear hearing aid, the microphones are located on the part that sits above your ear. There are usually 2 ports on the very top of the instrument. In an in-the-ear hearing aid, the microphone is often near the battery door. You can run your brush across the microphones to remove any debris.

  3. Inspect your sound port or wax guard

    • Some hearing aids have a small wax guard or wax trap covering the sound port where the sound comes out of the hearing aid. If these become plugged with wax, this can cause the hearing aid to malfunction. Replace your wax trap when necessary. Some instruments will not have this, and instead have a tubing extending from the instrument. If this is the case, you can use your cleaning tools to pick out the wax. Always remember that if you are unsure which you have, you can ask your hearing professional at the next visit.

  4. If you have a vent in your instrument, run a vent cleaning tool through it.

    • If you have a custom hearing aid or earmold, there is a good chance it has a vent, or air passage. You can run a thin filament through this space to push any wax out.

Take home!

You should be cleaning your hearing aids regularly. You should also do your best to protect your instruments from moisture. There are dri-aid kits or jars that you can store your hearing aids in to help absorb moisture that might have gotten into the devices. Your audiologist can help you to purchase one of these, or you can look into purchasing one off amazon. These can aid in keeping the hearing aids maintained well. If you have any further questions about hearing aid maintenance, contact us at (651) 888-7888.

For more information regarding when you see your audiologist, check out one of our older posts. 

Communication Strategies for Family Members

Posted on by Andros Audiology

So someone in your family has a hearing loss? Here are some tips to help with the communication breakdowns that are bound to happen.

Last week’s blog post was dedicated to the topic of issues people with hearing loss have in effectively communication. Because communication is a two-way street, it is important for those that are communicating with people with hearing loss know some important strategies to help alleviate those pesky communication breakdowns.

 Here are some helpful tips to help you have better communication with your family member!

  1. Do they already have a hearing aid? IF so…Please don’t shout at them!  Talking much louder will not help them understand you better when they have a hearing aid on. In fact you may sound too loud and distorted, just speak clearly and at a comfortable level.
  2. When talking with your family member, do your best to slow down your rate of speech.
    • – For example: “Doyawannagoouttoeat?” versus “Do you want to go out to eat?”
  3. Remember that they will have an easier time understanding what you say if you look at them and they can clearly see your face.
    • – Face them, make sure the room lighting is good.
  4. Visual speech cues are important for people with hearing loss, so do not block the view of your mouth.
    • – Sometimes resting a hand near your mouth, chewing gum or even facial hair can make speech reading more difficult.
  5. If you are asked to repeat yourself (and you probably will be asked), don’t get frustrated and say it louder—instead try to rephrase or say it differently.
    • – Often rephrasing instead of simply repeated gets the message across
  6. Try to minimize the distance between you and your family member; don’t try to have a conversation from another room or across the room.
  7. Remember that hearing aids should help your family member with their hearing loss, but will NOT restore it back to normal; they may still have some difficulty understanding you
  8. Do your best to minimize distractions when you are trying to have a conversation with your family member
    • – Some examples: turn down the TV, turn off the sink, roll up the windows in the car, sit by a wall or in a booth at a restaurant
  9. Try not to change the topic of conversation suddenly; it will be easier for your family member to follow along if the topic is clear and consistent.
  10. Have patience, it is going to take time for both you and your family member to adjust to hearing loss and/or hearing aids.