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a hearing aid fitting appointment with a audiologist showing the patient how to put in his hearing aid

What Happens During a Hearing Aid Fitting and Follow Up

Choosing hearing aids can feel like the biggest step in improving your hearing. Once you’ve selected the devices, you may expect to put them on, turn them on and head home. Hearing aids need more preparation than that. They have to be programmed for your hearing, checked while you’re wearing them and adjusted so they feel comfortable. A hearing aid fitting is the appointment where those pieces come together. Your audiologist sets up the devices, verifies how they’re performing and teaches you how to use them. You’ll then try them during your regular activities and return for follow up care based

The Ontario Infant Hearing Program: A Parent’s Guide to Newborn Hearing Screening

Photo by Jonathan Borba on Unsplash Few things matter more to new parents than knowing their baby is healthy. Among the screening tests offered shortly after birth, the newborn hearing screening is one of the most important yet often overlooked. Hearing plays a critical role in a child’s early development, supporting speech and language acquisition, communication, learning, and social interaction. Identifying any hearing differences as early as possible gives families and healthcare professionals the best opportunity to provide timely support. Ontario has had a universal newborn hearing screening program in place since the early 2000s, delivered through the Infant Hearing Program

What Your Audiologist Needs to Know About Your Health and Daily Life

A hearing test is an important part of understanding your hearing, but it doesn’t tell your audiologist everything. Your health, daily routine, listening environments, and personal goals can all influence the type of hearing care that may work best for you. Knowing what to tell your audiologist helps them see the full picture. A recent health change, a new challenge at work, or difficulty following conversations in restaurants may seem unrelated to your appointment, but these details can provide useful context. The more specific you can be, the easier it is to build a hearing care plan around your real life.

A man holding his ear, showing signs of Tinnitus pain

Understanding Tinnitus And Why It Happens

Tinnitus is often described as ringing in the ears, but it can sound different from person to person. Some people hear buzzing, humming, hissing, clicking, or even a whooshing sound, even when there is no outside noise causing it. For some, it comes and goes. For others, it can become a constant background sound. Tinnitus is also more common than many people realize. More than 40% of Canadians will experience tinnitus at some point in their lives, and for some, it can become bothersome enough to affect sleep, concentration, mood, and daily comfort. Understanding tinnitus means looking at what it is,

Elderly woman with short white hair, wearing a light blue jacket, leans forward with a hand to her ear, struggling with hearing loss.

How Do You Know If You Have Hearing Loss

Have you started asking people to repeat themselves more often? Maybe conversations in busy restaurants feel harder to follow, or you’ve noticed the television volume creeping higher than everyone else prefers. Hearing loss often develops gradually, which can make the early signs easy to dismiss. What feels like occasional mishearing or background noise frustration may actually be the beginning of a change in your hearing. Because hearing loss can happen slowly, many people do not realize how much they have been missing until someone else points it out. Recognizing the signs early can help you take action sooner, making it easier

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GRADUAL INTRODUCTION

A new procedure helps seniors address a common problem that many have in adjusting to new hearing instruments due to experiencing new sounds that they may find confusing and irritating. As a result, those aged 70-85 years may simply choose not to wear their hearing instruments or even abandon them altogether. The new intervention procedure seeks to ensure better wearer compliance by asking seniors to wear their instruments for a set amount of time and gradually increase the duration daily over a 30-day period. They begin with one hour for three days and then increased the time by one-hour increments every

EASILY EXPLAINED HEARING LOSS

While some forms of hearing loss fall into the “sensorineural” category (involving damage to the inner ear), “conductive” hearing loss is associated with a problem in the middle or outer ear that impedes sound waves from reaching the inner ear. Most common among this type of hearing loss are blockages caused by earwax (cerumen), which is the yellowish, waxy substance secreted by glands in the outer portion of the ear canal. Normally, as the skin of the ear canal grows outward from the eardrum, it carries wax to the ear opening as if it were on a conveyer belt. While proper,

SOUND FAMILIAR?

Many tinnitus sufferers have found a way to live with the constant ringing in their ears; others are not so fortunate, as the buzzing sound in their ears is so pronounced that it is difficult to concentrate during the day or sleep at night. In either case, tinnitus sufferers can benefit from an evaluation from an audiologist. On the basis of that exam, either a hearing instrument or a sound generator may be recommended. While the former makes sound so clear that the buzzing noise may recede, the latter drowns out the buzzing sound with a sound of a specific frequency.

IS HEARING LOSS LINKED TO ALZHEIMER’S?

There are a number of studies that suggest a link between sensory impairment and Alzheimer’s disease. For instance, one study found that people suffering from hearing loss had a 30% to 40% greater chance per year of experiencing cognitive decline than people with normal hearing. The rates of cognitive decline were directly related to the level of study participants’ hearing loss. However, it remains unclear whether the sensory problems precede Alzheimer’s disease or the other way around. Some researchers believe that Alzheimer’s disease may affect nerve pathways to the brain that transmit auditory information, while others think that hearing impairment may

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