AUDIOLOGY

Q: What if I have trouble hearing in noise? A: Noisy environments pose challenges for everyone — with and without hearing loss. Hearing aids can help wearers handle these situations with ease and confidence.

Whether celebrating with family, visiting a crowded store, or eating at a busy restaurant, holding conversations surrounded by high levels of ambient noise requires concentration and effort. Straining to hear voices in these situations is tiring — a fact with which even people with normal hearing are familiar.

For example, imagine you’re sitting around the table with relatives and everyone is chatting excitedly about the latest family news. Voices are bouncing around the table and forks and spoons are clinking away loudly in the background. Fortunately, the new state-ofthe art tech brings outstanding performance to the table to make sure you don’t miss a thing. The newest hearing aid technology continuously monitors what you are listening to and singles out the dominant speaker while simultaneously smoothing out impact sounds to reduce the clattering of cutlery. Now you can easily enjoy the speech you want to hear without straining past the noise you don’t. Another example: While waiting in traffic on a noisy street somebody asks you for directions. The SpeechMaster feature elevates your conversation partner’s voice above the other street noises with pinpoint accuracy while also reducing background sounds like passing cars, making it easy for you to understand the person you want to hear.

Thanks to the fully automatic interplay of complex features, hearing becomes effortless and less tiring all day long. In every situation from at the office with coworkers to leisure time with friends and family, Noise environment features are working in the background to make listening — and life — easier. Reports from new users have been very positive with patients reporting a smoother and less harsh sound that seems to be more natural without feeling like there is over processing of sound. Satisfaction rates have also improved, so if you’re on the fence about hearing aids, call the office and request an exam and demonstration to try it yourselfyou might be pleasantly surprised. I’m amazed how hearing technology has improved so much in the last twenty years.