GENERAL Let your hearing blossom By Karen Finch, Managing Director of The Hearing Care Centre Being in touch with your senses is all the more obvious as the spring and summer approaches here in beautiful East Anglia. Listening to birdsong in the countryside, listening to the wind rustling in the reeds at Snape or to children playing on the beach at Southwold; I reflect on just how important my day to day work is, assisting those experiencing hearing loss. Without their hearing aids many of these people just wouldn’t be able to hear, understand and enjoy what most take for granted and that gives me the greatest satisfaction.
same way as their eyesight, by having hearing checks every couple of years. I know it sounds silly, but when you lose some of your hearing you tend to compensate by turning up the TV or the volume on your music system and blame others for their mumbling and poor diction. That’s fine, but you can’t turn up people’s voices and in extreme cases can become cut off from friends and family who, not understanding the increasing problem, think you are just becoming unsociable and unwilling to take part in conversation.
2nd May marks the start of Deaf/Hearing Loss Awareness Week 2016 and my audiology team and I have one aim. We want to help explode some of the myths surrounding hearing loss! We are urging people to look after their hearing in the
It’s all so simple and of course painless! A hearing assessment carried out by a fully qualified audiologist begins with a health of your ear canals, then if all is OK to proceed takes you through a test where different sounds are played
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through headphones and responses are monitored. Results are translated onto a chart, or audiogram, on a computer screen that plots the level of hearing. Perfect hearing is 0, and anything between 0-20 is within normal range. And of course, if the results show below 20 then there is a hearing loss of some sort. So if you are experiencing any issues with your hearing, do take a moment to consider what it would be like to hear clearly again. As the flowers come out into bloom this spring, book a hearing test and let your hearing blossom! Karen Finch is the Managing Director and lead audiologist at The Hearing Care Centre. The multi-award winning, family-run company has 20 centres across Suffolk and Norfolk. For more information visit www.hearingcarecentre.co.uk or call 01473 230330.
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