The Hearing Knowledge Hub
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Technology for challenging listening environments
Technology to help you conquer challenging hearing environments Hot on the heels of our blog about speech-to-text apps, here’s another on remote microphones – another clever way that technology works with your hearing aids to help you hear at your best in demanding settings. Where do you find it hard to hear? Noisy restaurants and cafés: These are unpredictable listening environments that cause many hearing aid users strife. Often low lighting or awkward seating arrangements make it hard to get visual cues. Lots of hard surfaces can also make it difficult to hear who’s saying what. In the car: Road noise, few, if any, visual cues (due to seating) and…
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Speech-to-text smart apps – don’t miss a word!
What is a speech-to-text app? Modern technology certainly makes life easier for people with a hearing impairment. Of course, there are the amazing hearing aids that are available, and are constantly being improved upon. But what about the many apps designed to enhance communication? In this blog we look at some of the best speech-to-text apps designed to ensure you never miss a word in your conversations or meetings. Speech-to-text, or voice-to-text, apps use voice recognition software (and usually an active internet connection) to convert what’s being said into text, either on your smartphone, tablet or laptop. Alongside apps that are purpose-designed for people with hearing challenges, there are also…
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Face Masks and Hearing Aids. Avoid the tangle
Face masks and hearing aids: avoid the tangle Face masks are a fact of life for most of us now when we’re out and about. Unfortunately we’ve had quite a few clients come to us having lost or dropped and damaged their behind-the-ear hearing aids due to entanglements with mask ties. So here are some tips for avoiding the tangle. If your face mask has ties, then be sure to tie the straps high up on your head and low on your neck as this will avoid obstructing your hearing aids. When it comes to removing your mask, undo the bottom ties first then the top to avoid knocking your…
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Introducing Chatable – The AI app that helps you hear
Following on from our recent blog about hearing aids and face masks ‘Avoid the tangle’, we wanted to let you know about a new free app that may help solve the communication problems caused by face masks. Hear loud and clear – even without hearing aids As many of you have been finding, face masks muffle sound and eliminate lip reading cues – causing communication challenges for people with any level of hearing loss. However, the Chatable app is a smartphone app that many people are finding delivers good understanding of speech in noise and in scenarios where the person you’re speaking to is wearing a face mask. Chatable can even be used with or without hearing aids – even if you have…
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Why is Aural Rehab so important? Why is it different to “aftercare”?
Our holistic approach to hearing health Many audiologists focus purely on selling hearing aids to their clients, thinking that technology is the only way to enable a person to hear at their best. At The Hearing Clinic, we take a more holistic view of each client’s experience – using the latest hearing technology in conjunction with aural rehabilitation. Aural Rehabilitation works in a similar way to physiotherapy after having surgery or breaking a limb: it exercises the brain – the organ that we actually use to hear with – to get it back in shape to hear well. Our work with clients includes giving them Aural Rehab programmes and training that they can do in their own time to enhance the way they understand speech…
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September is World Alzeimer’s Month
Dementia and hearing loss – a recognised link September is World Alzheimer’s Month, making it the ideal time to remind you that the latest respected research from the Lancet Commission continues to highlight the link between unmanaged hearing loss and the risk of developing dementia. It was 2017 when the original Lancet Commission report focused on nine risk factors for dementia. While these ranged from smoking and obesity to physical inactivity, our attention was obviously drawn to ‘hearing impairment’ – here was confirmation that looking after your hearing health in middle age could reduce your risk of cognitive decline in later life. New study. Same message Three years down the line, an updated study by the same Lancet Commission team, continues to…
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Does my child have auditory processing difficulties or APD?
In this blog we want to focus on auditory processing difficulties, or APD, a hearing problem that affects around 5% of school age children. With the many Covid-19-related challenges that schools and pupils will be navigating, it would be easy to put any teething problems that your child may have when they return to school down to general anxiety and change. However, it’s important to be alert to any potential hearing issues because, if left unchecked, these can have a serious impact on your child’s language development, confidence, social skills and performance at school. Wondering if your child has APD? Does your child find it hard to process information? Do…
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Latest Lancet Report. Hearing Loss and Dementia
Wearing hearing aids and preventing dementia: reinforcing the link We’ve been highlighting the link between wearing hearing aids and dementia prevention for three years now. But a newly-launched report from a Lancet Commission restates this link and goes further – recommending wearing hearing protection to prevent hearing damage. Back in 2017 the original Lancet Commission report focused on nine potentially modifiable risk factors for dementia. These were: less education hypertension hearing impairment smoking obesity depression physical inactivity diabetes low social contact. The updated ‘Dementia prevention, intervention, and care: 2020 report of the Lancet Commission’, published this August, highlights a growing body of evidence to support these modifiable risk factors for…
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COVID can cause hearing loss and tinnitus
A small study from audiologists at the University of Manchester shows that one in eight people who have recovered from coronavirus experience problems such as tinnitus eight weeks after recovering. The study followed 121 coronavirus patients who were admitted to Wythenshawe Hospital. Sixteen of them (13%) reported damage to their hearing after eight weeks, including eight who reported tinnitus – a ringing or buzzing in the ears. Some of the patients already had some problems with their hearing before becoming ill with Covid-19. However, the results of the study, published in a letter to the International Journal of Audiology, have added to fears that Covid-19 could have a long-term impact…
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Do you suffer from Tinnitus
Do you suffer from tinnitus? It’s thought that around 10% of adults in the UK (that’s six million people) have mild tinnitus, while about 600,000 have tinnitus that affects their quality of life. Treating tinnitus is one of the core services offered by The Hearing Clinic, but what exactly is it? What is tinnitus? Tinnitus is the term for hearing sounds that come from inside your body, rather than from an outside source. For some people it manifests as a ringing in the ears, for others it can be a buzzing or humming, roaring or clicking sound. Some people can easily live with their tinnitus. But for others, tinnitus can interfere…
