Thursday, August 25, 2016

I’ve lost my hearing aids 3 times this year, is there anything that can help me?

Hearing aids are an investment in your hearing health care.  When you invest your time and money into getting a pair of hearing instruments it can be devastating to lose them, especially if it happens more than once.  With traditional hearing aids, you need to put them in every morning and take them out every night.  You also need to remove them to change the zinc-air battery.  Obviously the more you need to remove and reinsert the hearing instrument, the more risk there may be in misplacing it or losing it.

Lyric, an extended wear hearing device, is a device that is placed deep in the ear canal by one of our audiologists and remains in the ear canal 24 hours a day for 7 days a week.  The lyric device is FDA approved to remain in the ear canal for up to 4 months.  Because there is less maintenance with the Lyric device and it remains in your ear canal for an extended period of time,  there is virtually no risk of misplacing the device or losing it.   

Life sounds great!  Enjoy every moment!




Jane Kukula, AuD & Ashley Spisak, AuD
8897 Mentor Ave
Mentor, Ohio 44060
440-205-8848
Fax: 440-205-9818

Thursday, August 11, 2016

Is there a good return on investment in hearing aids?

When it comes to an investment in the quality of your life, there’s more than one way to measure value. Diagnosing and treating hearing problems has a positive impact on every aspect of your life, personally, professionally and even financially.

New technology has revolutionized hearing aids. They can automatically adapt to different environments, reducing the interference from background noise. There are daily wear and extended wear instruments.  Many are virtually invisible, sitting discreetly and comfortably inside the ear canal. Best of all, many are wireless, so you can stream sound from smartphones, home entertainment systems and other electronics directly into your hearing aid(s) at volumes just right for you.

When it comes to the purchase of personal items that 
enhance your life, there’s more than one way to measure value. Here are six ways that investing in professionally fitted hearing aids could bring you a greater return on your investment than you ever imagined. 

Using hearing aids reduces the risk of income loss.  People with untreated hearing loss can lose as much as $30,000 in income a year.

There is a link between hearing loss and dementia, 
leading experts to believe that interventions, like hearing aids, could potentially delay dementia. 

People with even a mild hearing loss are nearly three times more likely to have a history of falling. The intensive listening effort demanded by unaddressed hearing loss may take cognitive resources away from what is needed for balance and gait.

People with hearing loss who use hearing aids, may feel more in
 control of their lives and less self-critical. One study found that the majority of people with mild to severe hearing loss felt better about themselves and life overall as a result of using hearing aids.

Hearing aids can help reduce the prominence of tinnitus by
 amplifying background sound.

Using hearing aids can help improve interpersonal relationships.  People with hearing loss reported that using hearing aids improved their relationships at home, their social lives and their ability to join in groups.

Addressing hearing loss really is a smart buying decision. Start with a hearing evaluation.  



Life sounds great!  Enjoy every moment!


Jane Kukula, AuD & Ashley Spisak, AuD
8897 Mentor Ave
Mentor, Ohio 44060
440-205-8848
Fax: 440-205-9818










Thursday, August 4, 2016

I heard that smoking can cause hearing loss. Is this true?

Yes, it’s true.  For many years, we’ve known the dangers that smoking presents to hearing.  It’s only recently that they been have studying the hearing link to smoking.  Dr. Bharti Katbamna from the Western Michigan University reported two distinct dangers to hearing.  First, is to the hearing process. Second, is to the fine hearing nerves called hair cells.
Within our heads is a complex collection of parts that make up the ear.  There’s the eardrum, three small bones, and the cochlea.  The cochlea is a snail shaped bone filled with fluid and millions of hair cells. When sound travels through the air it eventually reaches the eardrum.  The eardrum vibrates in sync with the sound, passing the vibration along the three bones to the inner ear, sending a wave through the fluid, stimulating the hair cells.
The recent studies show that the chemicals in cigarette smoke are dangerous to the ear, affecting both the way sound vibrates the eardrum and middle ear bones, and the health of the hair cells. The affect smoking has on hearing is related to the number of cigarettes smoked.  The research shows that as the number of cigarettes smoked per day and the number of years of smoking increases, the risk for high-frequency hearing loss increases.
Unfortunately the negative effects of smoking do not stop within the inner ear but actually continue on into the brain.  Also, studies suggest that chronic nicotine use impairs cognitive auditory processing. In other words smoking can negatively impact the brain’s ability to “hear” and interpret sounds.

So here is yet another reason to quit smoking and have a baseline hearing test. Call for an appointment today at 440-205-8848. 

Life sounds great!  Enjoy every moment!



Jane Kukula, AuD & Ashley Spisak, AuD
8897 Mentor Ave
Mentor, Ohio 44060
440-205-8848
Fax: 440-205-9818