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“House Calls”

Since 1972

48 Margaret Rd.

Ormond Beach, Fl. 32176

“Patient Care”

386-677-7542

National Board for Certification in

Hearing Instrument Sciences

Board Certified

Michael A. Peskor, BC-HIS

Hearing loss is a shared disease. By this I mean that it not only affects the patient with the hearing loss. In fact, it often affects other people around them even more than the actual person with the loss.

There are two very common ways that people with a hearing loss react to their affliction. One way is to either become mean. "I don't have a hearing loss. If you would just quit your mumbling.” Even more often, they hide from the world. These are the people that are looked upon as wall flowers. They don't participate in activites as they would like.. People with normal hearing rarely understand others with a hearing loss. Often times when a person with normal hearing receives no response from the person with a loss, they become offended and place the blame on the person. These are awful scenarios, but in this day and age, there is help. Hearing aids can be truly wonderful for a very large percentage of our population.

I am sure that you have heard people say, "I can hear, I just can't understand". There is a very logical explanation for this. People with hearing losses tend to lose the high tones before they lose their lows. Letters that come from the chest are low frequency letters, ( a, e, i, o ) and those that are formed with the lips and teeth area higher frequency, ( t, p d ). A person with a hearing deficit will hear t-a-d, when the actual spoken word was t-a-p. They might mistake pad for pat or pass. They will hear the “a” fine but not the t's p's or d's. Hearing aids are made to emphasize the higher frequency letters more so than the lows.

Baby boomers...

Many of the baby boomers have been subjected to loud sounds that have damaged their hearing. These noises could have been presses in factories, sitting too close to speakers at a concert, shooting guns, as well as many others. It can be challenging as a health care professional to make sure that the patient hears the proper letters, and in many different environments. If we amplify an area of the patients' hearing where he is normal, then the patient will perceive the hearing aid as being too loud and annoying. These hearing aids are often found in drawers. Most hearing aid manufacturers have very good products. The hearing aid however, does not fit itself. The same hearing instrument can be annoying or beneficial to the very same patient, depending on how it is programmed.