Hunters hearing protection

Hearing Protection for Hunters – Practical and Affordable Solutions for All Types of Hunting

Did you know that the muzzle blast from a rifle or shotgun can be in excess of 140 decibels (dB)? And that this amount of noise is a thousand times louder than 80dB which is considered the level at which noise induced hearing damage occurs?

Exposure to just a single blast can cause permanent hearing loss. When one considers the multitude of shots fired from a dove field or from a duck blind, the effect on unprotected hearing can be devastating.

So what can you do to protect your hearing while at the same time partaking in your annual hunting heritage? The answer is the use of hearing protection devices such as foam or custom-molded ear plugs.

Notice I did not suggest the use of ear muffs. While these can be used while hunting, they tend to be bulky, hot, and highly conspicuous to wary game. Also, I do …

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Are SoundVoidsTM a Part of Your Life?

Do any of the the following scenarios apply to you (or a family member, friend, or co-worker)?

Someone is talking to you, but you miss the beginning and/or ending parts of some of the words, which results in the sentence structure not making a lot of sense. You are watching TV or listening to the radio, but the speaker “drops” entire words from his or her sentences. The result is that you find it difficult to impossible to understand what is going on. Conversing “one-on-one” is something that you can do well enough, but the minute any background noise comes into play – such as occurs at restaurants and social gatherings – your comprehension of the discussion nosedives.

If any of this has happened to you or someone you know, you may be experiencing SoundVoids™… a term used by AudigyCertified™ hearing care professionals.

A SoundVoid™ is defined as a …

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New Years Hearing Test

It’s a New Year … Time to Show Support for That Family Member with Hearing Difficulties

Happy 2013! And here is wishing you, your families, and friends all the very best in the coming year.

Speaking of the New Year, with it comes an annual influx of common calls to my practice that go something like this:

“My father/mother/uncle/aunt/grandfather/grandmother, etc., seemed to be having difficulty taking part in the conversations at the holiday gatherings. Could it be their hearing and if so what can be done about it? We are concerned that if these communication difficulties are not hearing related, that it could be something more serious.”

First of all I want to say how wonderful it is when I hear from someone like this that they exhibit such concern about a family member that they would be willing to take the initiative and do research such as this. What I and my staff would assure this person – and what I want to convey to …

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Loud Toys For Children Can Cause Hearing Loss

Watch Out For “Noisy Toys”

Each holiday season, millions of American parents, grandparents, uncles, nieces, other relatives, and family friends shop for and purchase toys for youngsters.

Yet while the toys are supposed to bring happy times and smiles to the faces of the children, many are designed by the manufacturer to be loud… and that is not a good thing. In fact some are so loud that they can cause permanent hearing damage after only a few minutes of exposure to a child.

How Loud Can Toys Really Be?

Just how loud can some children’s toys be? According to the Sight & Hearing Association – a nonprofit organization founded in 1939 with the goal of preventing needless loss of vision and hearing – there are a number of toys on the market that emit sound in excess of 90 decibels (dB) with some approaching 120 dB. For comparison, a chainsaw operates at 110dB! …

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Hearing loss and memory

Can Your Brain Remember What It Did Not Hear?

I’m sure you are familiar with this ages old debate: “If a tree falls in the forest, and there is no one there to hear it fall, did it make a sound?”

If sound was defined as only what we hear, then there would be no debate; the answer would be “no”.

However, “sound” is not just what we hear. Sound is vibrations traveling through space, And those vibrations are caused by waves from some sort of action or force. So the tree itself – while standing upright and still in the forest – does not make sound. But when it falls, its movement and impact with the ground does indeed make a sound; lots of sound in fact!

Now what in the world does this have to with hearing difficulties, brain function, and the title of this article “Can your brain remember what it did not hear? Plenty, because …

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Hearing Care, the Internet, and “Big Box” Retailers

A full decade into the 21st Century, it would be rare to find an American who has not been to a modern shopping mall or used the Internet. In fact many of us visit “Big Box” anchored shopping malls at least occasionally, and the number of Americans who regularly use the Internet far exceeds the number who do not. Even amongst senior citizens — the final demographic to embrace this technology — the gap between Internet users and non-users continues to narrow.

Without doubt, the Internet is a fabulous tool, providing us with a wealth of easily obtainable information in mere seconds. And the amount of relatively low-priced goods and services that “Big Box” and chain retailers supply can certainly help many families stretch their monthly budget.

But are these two venues the be-all-and-end-all for every consumer scenario?

The short answer is, “Absolutely not!” … especially when it comes …

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North State Audiological Services Staff

Why Choose an AudigyCertified™ Hearing Care Professional?

Did you know that the most exciting news in the field of hearing health care during the past three years isn’t a hearing technology breakthrough, nor is it a software programming revelation.

No, the most exciting thing to happen in the last three years – perhaps even during my nearly 30 years in audiology — is the formation of Audigy Group™, the largest member-owned association of independent hearing care professionals in the United States.

Purpose

AudigyGroup’s purpose is to strategically select and certify the most elite practitioners in each market who exemplify the core values of the group’s mission and vision in delivery of hearing and diagnostic services. Our shared mission is to deliver:

● Unsurpassed patient satisfaction

● Excellence through continued education

● Effective analysis and diagnosis of our patient’s hearing difficulties or balance condition

● Customized technology solutions that effectively integrate speech comprehension back into our patient’s …

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Lifestyle based hearing aids

Why Your Lifestyle — Regardless of Age — Needs to be Considered When Selecting Hearing Technology

Ah, high-technology consumer-oriented electronic devices. They’re everywhere we look in our daily lives. From the L.E.D. read-out timer-controlled automatic coffee maker to the hands-free cellular phone to digitally enhanced music and television systems, high-tech products are all the rage, enhancing our lives in ways that couldn’t have been imagined less than a generation ago.

And judging from some of the advertisements that are out there one might get the impression that high-tech hearing devices are the end-all answer to communication difficulties for someone with hearing difficulty. People are bombarded with ads on hearing devices telling them that by purchasing the “latest and greatest” from Brand ABC that they’ll immediately hear like they did when they were a teenager. Being good consumers, they research for hours on end, and then decide on a product with high expectations.

But for someone with hearing difficulties, taking that path is like trying to follow …

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Young Ag Workers Chico CA

Youngsters in Agriculture Need to Protect Their Hearing, Too!

With agriculture being such a huge economic base here in the North State, it’s no wonder that a number of farmers and ranchers are patients of mine. Hearing loss due to exposure to loud machines and vehicles is pretty commonplace amongst those in ag. In fact, it is estimated that 80% of all farmers in the United States have some hearing loss.

What is troubling is that many – too many — of those farmers and ranchers are not the fifty-something or sixty-something year olds that one might expect. They are young people; some as young as grade school age!

How can that be? Simply that these young people get exposed to loud farm machinery at an early age. Couple that with the louder and louder environment that our society has become through use of devices like personal music systems and these youngsters in ag are getting the proverbial double …

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Hearing Loss And Hearing Aid Myths Debunked – Fiction vs. Fact

A recently completed study by Johns Hopkins University – published on November 14, 2011 in the Archives of Internal Medicine – now confirms that 1 in 5 Americans have hearing loss in at least one ear.  This is well over 50 million people and far exceeds previous hearing care industry estimates of approximately 25 million.

The Johns Hopkins study is unique in that the data used statistically corresponded with the entire US population by including both men and women of all races, aged 12 and older, living in cities throughout the country.

Using the World Health Organization’s definition of hearing loss – not being able to hear sounds of 25 decibels or less in the speech frequencies – the Johns Hopkins researchers found that over 30 million Americans have hearing loss in both ears and that over 20% of the population – in excess of 50 million people – have …

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