Outer Ear

Sound enters the outer ear and travels through the ear canal to the ear drum, causing it to vibrate.

Middle Ear

The sound is then transmitted to three tiny bones located in the middle ear. These bones transmit the vibrations to the inner ear.

Inner Ear

The inner ear consists of a snail-shaped bone called the cochlea which contains fluid and thousands of tiny hair cells. The vibrations of the three tiny bones set the fluid in motion which in tum causes the hair cells to bend. This triggers nerve impulses that travel through the nerve of hearing to the brain where they are interpreted as meaningful sounds.

Hearing impaired people struggle with every day activities like having a conversation with their loved ones, phone calls or watching TV. These difficulties can have a negative impact on the psychological, social and emotional well-being of the individual.

More specifically, struggling to hear can lead to withdrawal from social activities, a drop in self-esteem and confidence, as well as anxiety and depression.

The majority of hearing losses can be treated with hearing aids.

Hearing aids will help you hear more clearly in conversations, and therefore make you feel more relaxed and self-confident. Hearing aids also reduce the isolation that you feel by becoming more involved in everyday social situations.

If you think you or a loved one suffers from hearing loss don't delay another day! Call us. We can help you make the first step towards better hearing.

Hearing loss happens gradually over the years. Its signs can be very subtle and as a result of that people may not realize that there is a problem. It is often family and friends around them that first become aware of it and encourage their loved one to have a hearing test. You might have hearing loss if you frequently ...

• ask people to speak up
• ask people to repeat themselves
• misunderstand what is being said in conversations and respond inappropriately
• ask people to turn up tv volume
• have difficulty understating all the words in a conversation

Types and Causes of Hearing Loss

Sensorineural Hearing Loss

This is the most common type of hearing loss, accounting for about 90% of all hearing loss. It is caused by damage to the hair cells in the inner ear that t transmit sounds to the brain. Common causes include:

• Aging
• Noise exposure
• Heredity
• Inner ear infections

The amount of hearing loss that someone has varies from one person to the other. Hearing loss is measured in terms of how it impacts on your everyday life. The degrees used to describe it are: mild, moderate, moderately severe, severe and profound.

Mild hearing loss: you are able to hear voices clearly in quiet situations, but you might have some difficulty hearing some speech and conversations in noisy environments.

Moderate hearing loss: speech is very hard to hear especially in loud environments, such as when the TV or radio is turned up.

Severe hearing loss: normal conversations are not audible and have to be conducted loudly.

Profound hearing loss: speech is inaudible even when it is very loud.

A hearing test performed by a qualified audiologist will help determine the degree of hearing loss you have, and will work with you to prescribe the best treatment for your needs.

Hearing impaired people struggle with every day activities like having a conversation with their loved ones, phone calls or watching TV. These difficulties can have a negative impact on the psychological, social and emotional well-being of the individual.

More specifically, struggling to hear can lead to withdrawal from social activities, a drop in self-esteem and confidence, as well as anxiety and depression.

The majority of hearing losses can be treated with hearing aids. These will help you.

These will help you hear more clearly in conversations, and therefore make you feel more relaxed and self-confident. Hearing aids also reduce the isolation that you feel by becoming more involved in everyday social situations.

If you think you or a loved one suffers from hearing loss don't delay another day! Call us. We can help you make the first step towards better hearing.

Behind-the-Ear (BTE)

A BTE hearing aid hooks over the top of your ear and sits behind your ear. A transparent tube connects it to a custom ear mould that rests in your ear ca This hearing aid is capable of providing more amplification than other hearing aid styles

Open Fit Behind-the-Ear (Open Fit BTE)

This hearing aid sits behind your ear. A very thin transparent tube connects it with a small plastic dome that rests in your ear canal. The plastic dome is n custom made. It comes in different sizes and shapes and we choose the right one for your hearing loss and ear canal size. This style does not completel: block the ear canal, and therefore allows some sounds to enter naturally without being amplified.

In-the-Ear (ITE)

An in-the-ear hearing aid is custom made and fills most of the bowl shaped area of your outer ear. It is large enough to accommodate such features such volume control and program button and is easy to insert because of its size.

A lot of people with hearing loss in both ears ask if they have to wear two hearing aids. The answer is yes. These are the advantages of hearing equally in both ears.

Better speech understanding

When you wear two hearing aids, speech sounds clearer and crisper. It is also easier to detect soft speech and whispers. This is particularly true in groui noisy situations such as in a restaurant or a mall. Two hearing aids will allow you to better separate speech from noise and focus on the conversation yo want to hear.

Better sound localization

With two hearing aids it will be easier to tell where sound is coming from. For example, in which direction traffic or a car horn is coming from or where yol grandchildren are playing. By wearing one hearing aid you would fail to pinpoint where the sound is coming from and would find yourself looking to the le to the right not knowing where to focus.

Definition: Tinnitus is the sensation of hearing noise in the ears in the absence of external sound. This noise varies from person to person and can include ringing, buzzing, hissing, clicking, roaring, chirping or whistling. Tinnitus can be heard in one or both ears, or in the head. It can be constant or intermittent and can vary in loudness. Generally, the noise is more noticeable in quiet places such as at night when we go to bed.

Effects: In most people tinnitus causes little or no annoyance. However, in some severe cases, it can negatively affect quality of life by causing difficulty concentrating and sleeping.

Facts: Tinnitus is very common and can occur at any age. For most people it is temporary, lasting only a few seconds. In Canada, as many as one in ten people have persistent tinnitus that is mild and somewhat bothersome. One in a hundred people have severe tinnitus that affects their quality of life.

Diagnosis: It involves a comprehensive medical examination and an assessment by a qualified audiologist.

Causes: Tinnitus is not a disease in itself but rather the symptom of a disease or condition. Two leading causes are exposure to loud noise and hearing loss. It is estimated that 80 percent of people with tinnitus have some degree of hearing loss. Other causes include wax build-up, ear infections, hypertension (high blood pressure), diabetes, allergies, head injury, as well as some types of medication. The exact mechanism that causes tinnitus is not completely understood.