Hearing Health
Why is it important to hear clearly?
Taking care of your hearing is important for your overall cognitive health. When you hear sounds and stay engaged with your environment, it helps keep your brain active and sharp. Stimulating your ears and brain by listening to sounds or talking with others can strengthen the connections in your brain. This can help reduce memory problems and slow down cognitive decline as you get older. If you don’t take care of your hearing, it can make it harder for your brain to work properly, which has correlations to conditions like dementia. Keeping your hearing healthy helps keep your brain healthy too!
I do not need hearing aids, I just turn the TV up louder!
Turning the TV up louder will make the overall volume loud. This can distort some of the signal as audible sounds also become amplified. In contrast, if you wore a hearing aid, only the sounds which you require amplification for would be boosted in order to balance out the low to high frequencies. This means a hearing aid fitted by an audiologist would be based on your hearing levels for each individual sound, providing you with volume just in areas where needed. This leads to improvement in understanding the clarity of speech without needing the TV louder.
I do not have a hearing loss- “everybody mumbles”!
Hearing loss can make sounds and speech seem muffled, even if people are talking normally. This is generally the case because we lose the high frequencies of speech first. These sounds are usually at the beginning and ending of words. It’s important to address hearing loss with tools like hearing aids and other treatments to help improve understanding and communication. Recognising hearing loss early can help prevent further issues and improve quality of life by allowing people to engage more fully in conversations.
Anatomy of the Ear
Why Hearing Health Matters:
Soundscape’s Tips for Maintaining Optimal Hearing
Good hearing health is often overlooked, but it plays a crucial role in our daily lives. From connecting with loved ones to enjoying music or even staying safe in noisy environments, hearing is an essential sense that impacts our overall well-being. Taking care of your hearing now can prevent issues in the future, so it's important to understand how to protect your ears and seek help when needed.
One of the first steps in maintaining hearing health is to protect your ears from loud noises. Overexposure to high decibel levels—whether from concerts, construction sites, or even loud music through headphones—can cause permanent hearing loss. Using ear protection, like earplugs or noise-cancelling headphones, can go a long way in preserving your hearing. At Soundscape Audiology we conduct appointments where we take an impression of your ears and make you custom noise plugs, swim plugs and sleep plugs.
Regular hearing tests are also essential. If you notice any changes in your hearing, such as difficulty understanding conversations, ringing in the ears (tinnitus), or a sense of fullness in your ears, it’s crucial to consult an audiologist. Early detection of hearing loss can lead to more effective treatments, whether it’s hearing aids, medical intervention, or simply lifestyle changes. Audiologists are trained to assess your hearing and provide tailored solutions to improve your quality of life.
Soundscape Audiology offers hearing tests for children over the age of 5 and recommends a child’s hearing is tested prior to starting kindergarten or if they have had a history of middle ear problems, pain in the ears, difficulty speaking or following instructions. Adult hearing tests are essential to identify a baseline of hearing thresholds and monitor your hearing levels over the years.
Maintaining your hearing health is also about staying informed. At Soundscape Audiology we are here to support and maintain your hearing health through preventative measures and rehabilitation programs. As clinical audiologists who conduct balance and hearing tests, we provide a holistic approach to your hearing health and ensure the latest hearing aid technology is available in our practice. Adapting to hearing aids takes time and we develop individualised programs to guide your hearing needs.
How Sound Travels Through the Ear
Soundscape Fact Sheets
Why are hearing aids important?
Hearing aids are vital devices for individuals with hearing loss. Their importance is beyond just improving hearing, as the benefits improve overall quality of life. This includes mental health, cognition and social well-being.
Here are some facts about the importance of hearing aids:
1. Improved Communication
Restores Access to Sound: Helps people hear conversations, alarms, music, and environmental sounds more clearly.
Reduces Misunderstandings: Enhances accuracy in communication with family, friends, and colleagues. Reduces the need to ask for repetition.
2. Mental and Cognitive Health
Can Slow Down Cognitive Decline: Untreated hearing loss is linked to faster cognitive decline and dementia. Hearing aids can stimulate the hearing nerve with more sound for the brain to stay active.
Boosts Mental Clarity: Reduces mental strain from trying to interpret muffled or incomplete sounds.
3. Social Engagement
Reduces Isolation: People with hearing loss may withdraw from social activities due to difficulty hearing. Hearing aids encourage participation.
Improves Relationships: Better hearing leads to more satisfying interactions with loved ones.
4. Safety and Awareness
Environmental Awareness: Helps people hear important sounds like sirens, car horns, doorbells, or someone calling for help.
Prevents Accidents: Especially important for older adults, where hearing loss can increase the risk of falls or accidents.
5. Emotional Well-being
Boosts Confidence: Easier communication often leads to higher self-esteem and reduced frustration.
Reduces Depression and Anxiety: Hearing aids help people stay engaged and reduce feelings of loneliness.
6. Workplace and Academic Performance
Improves Job Performance: Essential for communication, particularly in team-based or customer-facing roles.
Supports Learning: In children or students, hearing aids support language development and classroom engagement.
7. Technological Advancements
Modern hearing aids often come with:
Bluetooth connectivity for phones and TVs.
Directional microphones and noise-cancelling features.
Rechargeable batteries.
Smartphone apps for personalisation.
Hearing aids are not just devices to amplify sound — they are essential tools that support communication, cognitive health, safety, and quality of life. For people with hearing loss, early adoption of hearing aids can make a life-changing difference.
Here at Soundscape Audiology, we support your hearing needs by evaluating your concerns and provide you with an opportunity to trial devices in our clinic rooms.
We offer a 30-day trial period on hearing aids to ensure you are using the hearing aids and obtaining benefits from their daily usage.