Listen up! Argyll audiologists have something they want to tell you
Testing patients’ hearing from babies to centenarians is just a small part of audiologists work across Argyll, explains Lorn and Islands Hospital chief audiologist Drew Ferguson.
In the second part of a series looking at the work of our health service, Drew explains how his award-winning department covers five hospitals across Argyll and its islands.
As well as Drew, who has worked in Oban for 20 years, there is one senior audiologist, David Owens, and four senior assistants sharing the workload - in the last decade they have scooped the Best Team Award in the UK from the British Academy of Audiology.
Drew tells us: “Within audiology we provide hearing tests for babies to patients over 100 years old, whilst providing digital hearing aids to those who need them. Digital hearing aids allow us to fit to any hearing loss to allow us to enhance the patient’s hearing to make some sounds they would not hear normally more audible. This does not mean getting fitted with a digital aid will make your hearing go back to what it was before you had any hearing loss as we cannot replace the damage to the inner ear.
“Often people think that ‘it is just a hearing loss’ but research shows that the real cost of hearing loss could impact the UK economy by up to £30 billion per annum. It has been shown that people with hearing loss are more susceptible to cognitive decline, but the daily use of hearing aids can reduce cognitive decline by up to 75 per cent if the hearing aids are used all day every day.
“When the population think of audiology they think we just provide hearing tests and hearing aids, as one in six people will have a hearing loss in the UK today, but we provide much more than that by diagnosing people with brain tumours and facial palsies and ear cancers while treating patients with tinnitus.
“Tinnitus is experienced by one in seven people today in the UK and can affect people’s quality of life and their mental health. Actually people with hearing loss are twice more likely to develop mental health problems than people who don’t have hearing loss.
“We also regularly see patients with balance problems as often these symptoms can be diagnosed and treated by the audiologist. One common example is patients will experience short-lived vertigo when turning over in bed and that is called benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV). BPPV is caused by some crystals moving from one balance organ to another, but with some positional exercises by the audiologist this can resolve this condition.
“The benefits of working in a rural environment includes the fact that we have much more flexibility to provide a wider range of digital hearing aids, including specialised bone anchored hearing aids, as these aids are fitted to patients who have ears that are constantly infected or have a congenital abnormality such as having no ear canal.
“We also continue to evaluate new hearing aid products to the NHS market as new hearing aids today can allow the streaming of bluetooth to our mobile phones and other digital devices. This technology allows people to stream their phones calls or music from their phones directly to their hearing aids without taking their aids out.
“Geographically Argyll and the islands is a large area to cover as we routinely have to travel to get to island clinics to see our patients but it is really important to us that we strive to maintain an equality of service for all our patients within our area.”