The strange part of hearing loss is that we don’t seem to start appreciating our favorite sounds until after we’ve lost the capacity to clearly hear them. We don’t pause to think about, for example, how much we appreciate a good conversation with a close friend until we have to routinely ask them to repeat […]

The hearing healthcare industry has two barriers that prevent individuals from attaining healthier hearing: The inability to recognize hearing loss in the first place (due to its slow onset), and The temptation to find a quick, easy, and inexpensive solution. Unfortunately, numerous people who have overcome the first barrier have been lured into the supposedly

That there is a right way to clean your ears implies that there is a wrong way, and without a doubt, there is a very wrong way. The wrong way is customary, and it breaches the first rule of cleaning your ears: don’t insert foreign objects into your ear canal. That includes cotton swabs and

It’s common to think of hearing loss as an inevitable problem associated with aging, or, more recently, as a consequence of the younger generation’s routine use of iPods. But the numbers show that the larger problem may be direct exposure to loud noise at work. In the United States, 22 million workers are subjected to

The adage “you get what you pay for” is definitely true of hearing aids, and although the latest hearing aids are designed to be more effective than ever, they’re not exactly cheap, either. The good news is, modern digital hearing aids, while not cheap, ARE becoming more affordable, in the same manner that most consumer

The World Health Organization estimates that 1.1 billion individuals are at risk for noise-induced hearing loss, induced by exposure to excessive sound levels from personal audio devices and noisy settings such as nightclubs, bars, concerts, and sporting events. An estimated 26 million Americans already suffer from the condition. If noise-induced hearing loss results from exposure

If we seriously want to understand hearing loss, we have to understand both the physical side, which makes hearing progressively more difficult, and the psychological side, which includes the lesser-known emotional responses to the loss of hearing. In conjunction, the two sides of hearing loss can wreak havoc on a person’s total well being, as

Many people are surprised to discover how young the profession of audiology actually is, and how recently its founding father founded the profession. To put this in perspective, if you desired to find the founding father of biology, as an example, you’d have to go back in time by 2,300 years and read the The

When it’s time to shop for a car, the majority of us know exactly what to do. We conduct some research, evaluate options, and compose a list of questions to ask the dealership. We work on this so that by the time we’re ready to visit the dealership, we have an idea of what we’re