At Associates In Hearing, LLC we conduct our initial hearing assessments with a straightforward four-step process.
In our experience, this process yields the most accurate and personally relevant results through a combination of state-of-the-art hearing evaluations and a thorough interview, to ensure that we fully understand your lifestyle and your needs. Understanding your concerns and what’s most important to you in a better-hearing solution is one of our most important priorities.
Step One: The Interview
The interview help us determine how you are experiencing your hearing loss and to uncover any information that might help reveal its cause.
Typical questions include:
Step Two: The Hearing Examination
The examination will help us determine if the hearing difficulty you are experiencing is being caused by an obstruction or damage to the ear canal or eardrum. We will use a magnifying instrument called an otoscope to painlessly inspect the outer ear.
Step Three: The Hearing Test
Hearing testing helps us determine the specifics of your hearing loss. If you have a measurable hearing loss, your results will be clearly documented on an audiogram. Hearing evaluations often include the following, depending on your needs:
Step Four: Treatment Options
With this step, we will recommend and explain the benefits of suitable solutions (if necessary) for your degree of hearing loss and your lifestyle. Options include:
Hearing Aids
Amplification with hearing aids is the preferred treatment for most types of hearing loss and can provide significant improvements in one’s ability to communicate effectively and without a burdensome degree of effort. Today’s digital hearing aids come in a variety of designs (including invisible-in-the canal models) with a wide range of functions and features to address an individual’s specific needs.
Assistive Listening Devices
ALDs are specialized hearing technologies that help people with all degrees of hearing loss. These devices can facilitate face-to-face communication and improved experience with media such as televisions and telephones adapted to help the hearing impaired.
Hearing Conservation and Protection
In addition to assisting you hear better, we will discuss conserving and protecting your hearing from additional loss due to noise exposure. When avoiding noise exposure is not an option, we offer a large variety of hearing protection devices, both non-electronic and electron custom solutions.
Surgery & Implants
More severe hearing losses may benefit from devices surgically inserted into the ear to improve hearing, facilitate lip reading, and make it easier to distinguish certain sounds. Typically, these are most helpful to deaf or profoundly hearing-impaired people who are unable to achieve sufficient benefit from hearing aids.
A few examples of surgical implants:
After a comprehensive hearing evaluation, when appropriate, your audiologist may recommend that you see an Ear, Nose, and Throat physician, should your results suggest you may be better suited for a medical evaluation and possible implant to address your type of hearing problem.