Hearing-care professionals (HCPs) and hearing aid wearers report the chief complaint secondary to hearing loss and to wearing traditional hearing aids, is the inability to understand speech-in-noise (SIN; see Beck et al, 2019). Beck et al (2018) reported that, in addition to the 37 million Americans with audiometric hearing loss, 26 million have hearing difficulty and/or difficulty understanding SIN, despite clinically normal thresholds. As such, helping people hear (i.e., to perceive sound) and helping people listen (i.e., to comprehend, or apply meaning to sound) remains paramount.
Topic(s): speech-in-noise, Hearing, Hearing Loss, Sensorineural Hearing Loss, Noise Reduction, Audiometric Test
Tinnitus is an invisible condition affecting 10 percent to 15 percent of adults (Hoffman and Reed, 2004). Chronic tinnitus is defined as the persistent perception of sound when there is no external source (Jastreboff, 1990). It generally is accepted that tinnitus is manageable and not bothersome for about 80 percent of those who experience it (Davis and Refaie, 2000; Hoffman and Reed, 2004; Jastreboff and Hazell, 1998). That is, most people who experience tinnitus tend to ignore it and are not interested in receiving specialized clinical services.
Topic(s): Hearing, Tinnitus, Sensorineural Hearing Loss, Meniere’s Disease (MD), tinnitus retraining therapy (TRT), Tinnitus Handicap Inventory (THI), Tinnitus Functional Index (TFI), tinnitus education (TED), tinnitus masking (TM)
With increased competition in the marketplace and changes in regulations allowing for over-the-counter (OTC) direct hearing aid sales to consumers, audiologists are becoming more dependent on hearing aid revenue as their main source of income. Thus, we quickly are realizing the urgency and need for increasing public and medical awareness of audiology.
Topic(s): Audiologist, Hearing, Public Awareness, Professional
