With remarkable advances in technology, hearing aids are now more effective than ever.
In our practice, we dispense hearing aids only after running electroacoustic measurements to ensure that they do, indeed, work. We’ll place a slim probe microphone right next to your eardrum so that we can accurately test the output of the device. That way, we know with certainty that it is not only working but meeting the specifications we’ve set to give you the best access to sound.
So why do people find that hearing aids don’t work?
As passionate aural rehabilitation audiologists, we’ve embarked on a mission to answer this question. In our quest for understanding, we’ve met with Pat Dobbs, a longtime user of hearing technology and renowned HLAA activist.
Pat began to lose her hearing as a young adult, and it steadily declined over the years. As an accomplished, young sales rep, Pat hid her hearing loss for fear of stigma. She also felt resentful, frustrated, and misunderstood. She also hated — hated — her hearing aids.
Through a fascinating journey of self-discovery, Pat realized that there’s so much more to hearing loss.
Hearing loss can be exhausting, upsetting, and discrediting. It can affect everyone and everything in your life. And you can bluff through it, deny it, withdraw socially, or wish you were someone else. Alternatively, you can accept it, improve it, and live life to its fullest.
That’s what Pat Dobbs learned at a two-year training program at Gallaudet University: how to help people with hearing loss feel empowered, understood, and deal with everyday situations that life presents us with.
A hearing device is only a tool. It’s only a step in the process. It’s not effective alone. So we’ve now partnered with Pat to provide a complimentary introductory coaching session to all our new hearing aid users. We’ll give you the best access to sound through a personalized hearing prosthesis, but Pat sees a much broader picture: You, your family, your life, and how your hearing loss can and cannot affect it, and the practical ways to deal with it.
Because hearing is a communication disorder, it’s not only about the person with hearing loss — it’s about anyone they communicate with.
As a spouse, friend, or child of a hearing-impaired individual, you are affected by hearing loss. So you also play a role in the treatment of hearing loss. That’s why Pat gives workshops, coaching, and classes to people with their communication partners as well.
Look up Pat on her website to discover more about her and probably more about yourself.
Working with Pat has expanded new vistas of hearing care for us. It’s about evidence-based science and technology, coupled with the ripple effect of coaching, change, discovery, and living life without limits. And that’s our goal.