Hearing loss creates a lot of problems in a person’s personal & professional life, & causes issues with their emotional well-being.
The causes of hearing loss can be diverse and not particularly related to any specific reason.
Certain diseases, illnesses, infections, medications, & accidents can lead to hearing loss, as can certain structural & genetic disorders.
Whatever the cause of hearing loss, hearing aids can help treat your hearing loss.
They can very easily help you hear properly & interact with other people more meaningfully.
However, it’s important to choose the right hearing aids for this purpose.
How do hearing aids work?
A hearing aid is basically a battery-powered electronic device that helps you hear external sounds more accurately.
They are quite tiny so they can easily be worn around or behind your ears, & they help make external sounds louder to help you easily hear those.
With the help of hearing aids, you can amplify external sounds which helps you communicate with the other people around you in a better way.
There are three components of a hearing aid. These are:
A microphone, that picks up external sounds
An amplifier that makes those sounds louder
A receiver that sends these amplified sounds into your ear.
However, hearing aids don’t benefit everyone who wears them. Hearing Aids often benefit those people who have damages to their inner ear and/or the nerve that links the ear with the brain.
The damage can be due to:
Disease
Aging
Loud noises
Medications
Hearing loss that occurs due to issues with the eardrum, ear canal, or middle ear, is called conductive hearing loss.
In most cases, surgery or any other medical intervention might help relieve the hearing loss of patients.
But these options are often not for everyone.
Typical Hearing Aids only work for you if you have an open ear canal & a relatively normal exterior ear canal.
Instead, a device that sends sounds to the inner ear through their skull bone, might be the best option for them.
How you can get a hearing aid?
An Ears-Nose-Throat(ENT) doctor can help you with the proper hearing aids for yourself.
These specialists can easily evaluate & help treat your hearing loss.
The ENT specialist will conduct exams to help you find out the best hearing aids for your case.
In addition to that, an audiologist will perform certain tests on you to figure out the exact type of hearing loss you’re suffering from.
You should always get hearing aids from a specialist, only after performing all the tests and due diligence.
Avoid mail-ordering hearing aids as they often don’t fit correctly, & don’t improve your hearing issues much.
Most people don’t experience hearing loss in both ears, however, some people do.
For people with hearing loss in both ears, it’s probably best to wear two hearing aids.
Types & Styles of hearing loss:
An audiologist can help you find the right kind of hearing aids for yourself. They will figure out the best kind of hearing aids for you depending on your exact degree of hearing loss, & also modify it according to any special needs you might have.
The factors that determine what kind of hearing aids is best for you:
The type of hearing loss you suffer from & its severity
Your age
Your experience & efficiency with small devices
Your lifestyle
The cost. Hearing aids costs can vary greatly in price, often ranging from hundreds to thousands of dollars
Hearing Aids are primarily of two types. These include:
Analog hearing aids: These convert sound waves to electrical signals that help make the sounds louder. They’re generally less expensive than the other kind of hearing aids. They are also easier to handle as they have easier volume controls.
Digital hearing aids: These hearing aids convert sound waves into numerical codes much like computer codes, which then amplifies them.
The codes include information about the direction of a sound, its pitch, & its volume.
This helps the patient easily control & modulate the sound volume, frequency, & intensity according to their physical conditions & surroundings, i.e., whether they are in a quiet room, setting, or someplace noisy & loud. Most digital hearing aids are able to adjust such tiny details & nuances automatically, without any manual adjustments.
The automatic kind, however, costs significantly more than the manual digital hearing aids, but have shown better results & are also smaller in size, thus easier to handle. They are also more powerful than manual digital hearing aids.
Style of hearing aids:
There are three main styles of hearing aids. They differ in their size, placement in or over the ear, along with how much they help the patient hear external sounds.
These styles include:
Canal hearing aids: Canal hearing aids fit inside your ears which makes them harder to see. An In-the-canal(ITC) hearing aids are made to fit a specific canal of your ear. A completely-in-canal(CIC) hearing aid is smaller & nearly disappears inside the ear canal. Both types are used to treat moderate to severe hearing loss, however, since they are both extremely small, they can be difficult to adjust & remove.
Owing to this reason, these usually aren’t used for small children & older people who might have difficulty adjusting to them.
These devices are quite difficult to see, hence you might want to wear them every day, or even use them for several months at a stretch.
In-The-Ear(ITE) hearing aids: ITE hearing aids fit completely inside your ear. They come in a hard plastic case that holds the electronics parts.
They are used for people with mild to severe hearing loss, although they are not suitable for children whose ears are still growing in size.
Behind-The-Ear(BTE) hearing aids: BTE hearing aids sit encased in a hard plastic case behind your ears. A plastic ear molds fits inside the outer ear & directs sounds to the ear.
A different type, which is called Mini BTE, fits entirely behind your ear with a narrow tube that goes into your ear canal.
This tube helps prevent earwax from building up inside the ear, as well as helps make your own voice sound clearer.
BTEs can help treat mild to severe hearing loss, however, they aren’t for everyone.Receiver-In-Canal(RIC) & Receiver-In-the-ear(RIE) hearing aids: Both of these hearing aids have a behind-the-ear component that connects to the receiver in the ear or the ear canal with a tiny wire. This helps low-frequency sounds to enter the ear in a natural way & also helps the high-frequency sounds to be amplified through the hearing aid. RIC & RIE hearing aids help patients with mild to severe hearing loss.
You can also modify any of these devices according to your specific needs & requirements. Your doctor will help you define those needs & requirements, based on which they will specify the exact hearing aid for you. Book an Appointment: https://vertigoandearclinic.com/contact-us.php
It is performed by trained & licensed speech-language pathologists, often known as speech therapists.
Speech therapy technique is used to improve communication among patients.
Speech therapy includes articulation therapy, language intervention activities, & other stuff depending on the type of speech or language disorder.
Speech Therapy is necessary for speech disorders that occur in childhood, along with speech problems in adults often caused by a stroke, an illness, or a brain injury.
Who needs Speech Therapy?
Speech Therapy helps treat several speech & language disorders in patients. These include:
Articulation Disorders: Articulation Disorders refer to the inability to properly form certain word sounds. Children or adults with this disorder might not be able to pronounce certain words properly, or pronounce them with an added sound. For example, a child with articulation disorder might pronounce ‘this’ as ‘thith’.
Fluency Disorders: People with fluency disorders face problems with speaking fluently or clearly in a sentence. Stuttering & cluttering are some examples of a fluency disorder. A person with stuttering may repeat certain words or be unable to complete a sentence without a ‘stutter’, & a person with cluttering may speak too fast & mix words together.
Resonance Disorders: A resonance disorder happens when a blockage or obstruction of regular airflow in the nasal or oral cavities results in alteration of the vibrations responsible for delivering a proper quality of voice. This disorder can also occur if the velopharyngeal valve doesn’t close properly. Cleft palate, neurological disorders, and swollen tonsils can all cause Resonance Disorders.
Receptive Disorders: Someone with receptive disorder fails to understand & process what others are saying. This can cause people with this disorder to seem uninterested, slow, confused to others in a conversation, along with causing them problems in understanding directions & following orders through.
Disorders like autism, hearing loss, & a head injury can all cause receptive disorders.
Expressive Disorders: Expressive disorder refers to a difficulty in expressing or conveying information. People with expressive disorders may find it difficult to create properly structured sentences & use incorrect verb forms or tenses.
Developmental disorders like Down syndrome & hearing loss can cause Expressive Disorders, so can head injuries & any serious trauma.
Cognitive-Communication Disorders: Cognitive-communication disorders occur when an injury or damage to the part of the brain that controls speech & your ability to think causes problems with speech & understanding others.
It can cause memory loss, a decrease in problem-solving capabilities difficulty speaking, or listening to others. Biological problems like abnormal brain development, & some neurological symptoms like a brain injury or stroke can cause cognitive-communication disorders.
Aphasia: Aphasia is an acquired speech disorder that affects a person’s ability to speak clearly & understand others properly. Aphasia usually occurs following a stroke & other brain disorders.
Dysarthria: Dysarthria is a condition that results from problems with controlling the muscles used in speaking. It causes a person to slur their words & slow down their speech. Dysarthria often results from nervous system disorders that cause facial paralysis & throat & tongue weakness like Multiple Sclerosis(MS), amyotrophic lateral sclerosis(ALS), & stroke.
How Speech Therapy helps patients?
Speech Therapy works by retraining a patient’s brain or other systems of the body to speak & articulate properly, as well as redevelop cognitive skills to help them understand others & study situations better.
Speech therapy for children:
Speech therapy for children consists of exercises & activities depending on your child’s age, the exact speech disorder they have, & the level of their motor skills.
During speech therapy, the speech-language therapist might:
Interact with them through talking & playing, as well as using books & pictures of other objects to help train them language intervention & language stimulation skills.
Musing age-appropriate play to model certain sounds & syllables to help children get familiar with them & pronounce them better
Provide adequate instructions & easy-to-follow homework & guidelines for parents &/or caregivers of the child on how to perform speech therapy on the child at home
Speech therapy for adults:
Speech therapy for adults focuses on training them in speech functions, language skills, as well as cognitive-communication.
It also helps retrain them to help with their swallowing & eating difficulties along with speech & language difficulties, as happens in Parkinson’s disease & oral cancer.
Speech therapy exercises for adults may involve:
Problem solving, memory, & organization activities, along with other activities & exercises aimed at improving cognitive-communication skills
Conversational exercises to help improve language & speech skills
Breathing exercises for resonance & oral exercises to strengthen the jaw & other muscles used in speech
Along with this, patients can also make use of specialized apps to help them speak & pronounce words better, along with certain workbooks & video lessons from their speech therapist.
Which are the top 10 speech therapy centers in Jaipur?
The top 8 speech therapy centers in Jaipur that help patients, both children & adults improve their speech & get over their speech & language impairments are:
Dr. Anita Bhandari’s Vertigo & Ear Clinic: Provides excellent speech therapy services & specially trained speech therapists & language trainers to help patients get over their stutter & other speech difficulties caused by a range of neurological as well as genetic issues
Lavanya Speech & Hearing center: Another great speech therapy center in Jaipur, has speech therapy experts with over 10 years of experience in speech therapy & other language issues. Good track record of service.
Sai Speech & Hearing Center: They provide excellent diagnostic, speech therapy, expert audiologists, & hearing loss treatment services in Jaipur. Experienced professionals with good reputations.
Perfect Speech & Hearing Clinic: Provides excellent-quality speech therapy training for adults as well as children & helps them get over their swallowing, speaking, & eating difficulties.
Kuber Speech & Hearing Center: Helps people get over their speech impediments by providing professional grade speech-therapy services & language training to help them articulate better.
Eternal Hospital: Provides expert speech-training services for children & helps them improve their speech skills, language efficiency, & also solves their eating & swallowing difficulties.
CureWell Clinic: Provides excellent speech therapy for children with hearing impairment & speech difficulties, along with consultation for other hearing issues & neurological disorders.
Swastik Speech & hearing clinic: Helps kids with hearing issues & speech disabilities improve their speech skills & language efficiency with highly skilled & expert speech therapy sessions.
Hearing loss is one of the most common health complaints faced by people across the globe.
Although it generally bothers people of advanced ages, hearing loss can sometimes also be seen in middle aged people as well as young adults.
The proper treatment for a hearing problem depends on the exact causes & the underlying illness(es) causing it.
If you’re experiencing hearing loss, the first thing to do is visit a professional & get a hearing test done.
Getting proper treatment for hearing loss is essential at whichever stage it is caught, as it can slowly but surely begin to interfere with your everyday life.
Overtime, it can become difficult for you to follow through with any conversations you’re having with other people, which can significantly impact your personal & professional life.
People suffering from hearing problems & hearing loss are also shown to be at a higher risk of developing psychological issues later in life, including social anxiety & depression.
Hearing loss also increases your risk of physical injuries, traffic accidents, & general mishappenings in your daily activities.
Owing to all these reasons, & also to ensure you have a wholesome, happy life experience, it’s important to get prompt treatment for hearing loss & any other hearing problems you might be having.
Causes of Hearing Loss:
Presbycusis, also known as age-related hearing loss, is by far the most common type of hearing loss encountered today.
This happens due to aging; the hair cells in the ear that help with hearing functions get weaker with advancing age & eventually stop working altogether.
This is also the primary reason why almost half of all people over the age of 75 years experience hearing loss & some type of hearing problems.
Age-related hearing loss is referred to as a kind of sensorineural hearing loss, which means that it originates inside the inner ear &/or the auditory nerves. It is caused by damage to the hair cells of the inner ear, which can either be due to old age or exposure to very loud noise or sounds.
This exposure can take place either at once or over a period of time.
Unfortunately, this type of hearing loss (i.e., sensorineural hearing loss) is permanent in nature, as the damaged hair cells in the inner ear can’t be restored back to normal.
For people experiencing sensorineural hearing loss, hearing aids are the standard treatment option to bring back a degree of normalcy in their lives.
Cochlear implants & bone-anchored hearing aids may also be recommended to you in some particular cases of hearing loss.
Below, we take a deeper look into each of these hearing loss treatment options.
Hearing Aids
Hearing Aids are the best form of treatment for patients with natural hearing loss. If your doctor recommends hearing aids for your hearing problems, then they will work with you to calibrate the hearing aids to your specific condition. This process is also called ‘fitting’.
The basic purpose of hearing aids is to amplify the external sound that the person is hearing.
Today’s hearing aids can be precisely calibrated to your personal requirements, amplifying a few certain sounds while minimizing all the other sounds.
Hearing Aids can’t restore or mimic a person’s natural hearing, but they can ensure a minimal level of hearing for a person with moderate to severe hearing loss.
Depending on the degree of the hearing loss experienced & the extent of the hearing problems faced, your doctor may recommend you to wear your hearing aids either behind the ear or in the ear.
If you experience hearing loss in both ears, then two hearing aids might be better than one.
Since Hearing Aids are used to treat hearing loss externally, there are usually little to no side effects of those.
Cochlear Implants
If hearing aids don’t treat your hearing loss, then your doctor might suggest cochlear implants instead.
Cochlear implants, as the name suggests, are surgically installed inside the ear, & help the patient make sense of the various sounds that are present in the external environment.
Unlike hearing aids, these do not work as soon as they’re installed, & require time for the patient to get acquainted with them.
Post the cochlear implant surgery, you will need to work with a speech specialist, a hearing specialist, & an audiometrist to help you hear external sounds with the cochlear implants.
Cochlear implants are often an excellent choice for older people with age-related hearing loss, as hearing aids might not be very helpful in their position.
Once you get used to the cochlear implants, you will find them extremely helpful in deciphering external sounds & helping you live a better quality of life.
There are also certain other kinds of hearing devices called the Assistive Listening Devices that help you have a better hearing experience while watching TV or listening to music.
When it comes to hearing while talking to others, hearing aids & cochlear implants are the better choices.
Want to know more about hearing problems, hearing issues, & hearing devices? Visit www.vertigoandearclinic.com for more information.
Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo, also known as BPPV, is a type of Vertigo which is by far the most common in Vertigo patients.
BPPV is caused by an inner ear issue, & leads patients to feel as if the room around them is spinning & their surroundings are moving even when they are perfectly still.
BPPV is usually not a serious condition, as the term Benign in its name specifies. It is usually triggered by certain head movements, as the term positional in the name suggests.
BPPV symptoms also hit suddenly & last for short bursts of time, as suggested by the term positional in its name.
If you have BPPV, you don’t need to worry at all. It is quite a common condition, & can be easily treated by a Vertigo doctor.
BPPV symptoms often resemble those of other conditions, & can be quite hard to diagnose at first.
BPPV is usually not fatal, unless it increases your chances of falling while performing certain activities like walking, jumping, mountain climbing, driving, weightlifting, etc.
BPPV Symptoms:
BPPV symptoms occur suddenly, & often makes the patient feel as if they’re spinning, moving, or about to fall down.
They are often triggered by a change in the position of the head, or any movement that can irritate the position of the calcium crystals misplaced inside the semicircular canal.
Some of the most common BPPV symptoms include:
A feeling of the surroundings spinning or moving,
Nausea or vomiting,
Motion sickness & general unsteadiness,
Lightheadedness & fainting
How to test which ear is affected by BPPV?
Sit up on your bed such that your head hangs over the edge when you lie down.
Turn your head in the right direction & quickly lie down.
Wait a minute before performing the next steps. If you feel dizzy during this time, then it means that your ride sight is affected by BPPV.
If no dizziness occurs, sit up, wait for a while, & repeat the test on the left side.
If you feel dizzy when doing the test on your left side, then that means your left side is the one affected by BPPV.
BPPV Causes:
Inside the ear, lie tiny calcium crystals also called otoconia. Sometimes, these crystals can break from their original position inside the middle ear & deposit inside the semicircular canal of the inner ear.
When this happens, they cause problems with the way the vestibular system located inside the inner ear functions to keep the body’s balance.
These tiny calcium crystals are motion sensitive, thus causing false sensations of motion everytime the patient moves their head in certain ways.
Many actions can trigger the feelings of BPPV. These include:
Rolling over to the side of bed,
Getting in & out of bed,
Bending during yoga,
Tripping your head back during a session at the salon,
Performing any activities that require certain specific head movements
BPPV diagnosis:
In order to provide you with an accurate BPPV treatment plan, your doctor will have to diagnose your condition with precision.
Your doctor will usually ask for a history of your symptoms, & any other illnesses or injuries you have had in the recent past.
Your doctor will also look for any abnormal eye movements, also called nystagmus. Nystagmus is an undeniable physical symptom of Vertigo, which will pretty much seal your BPPV diagnosis.
Your doctor will also check if any of your symptoms occur when you move your head in certain ways & directions, another tell-tale sign of BPPV.
If a physical exam is inconclusive, your doctor might also recommend the Electronystagmus test( the ENG test), &/or the Videonystagmoraphy test( the VNG test), along with the MRI test.
BPPV treatments:
Most cases of BPPV episodes are short-lasting in nature, & go away on their own.
BPPV treatments usually focus on reinstating the misplaced calcium crystals in the inner ear back to their original position.
They do this with the help of certain exercises called the canalith repositioning maneuvers, which help move the displaced calcium crystals back to their original position.
The most common canalith repositioning maneuvers that doctors use to move the displaced calcium crystals back into their original position are:
Epley Maneuver: The Epley Maneuver is a very well-known Vertigo exercise that vertigo specialists recommend for BPPV treatment. The Vertigo exercise involves moving your head in certain directions to help the displaced calcium crystals fall back into their original position.
The Epley Maneuver is known to be very effective when it comes to long-lasting BPPV treatment. It involves a few very simple steps that you can even carry out at home. Although in the beginning, you will be required to perform the Epley Maneuver under the supervision of a Vertigo specialist.
Semont Maneuver: The Semont maneuver takes about 15 minutes to complete, & involves certain specific head movements similar to the Epley Maneuver.
Although it is a bit less common than the Epley Maneuver, it has a wide success rate in BPPV treatment, next only to the Epley Maneuver.
Medicines: BPPV treatment also includes various medications like meclizine, diazepam, dramamine, phenergan, & scopolamine. Patients are supposed to take Vertigo medicines along with performing dizziness & vertigo exercises for effective BPPV treatment.
Surgery: In some cases, surgical interventions may be required for effective & long-lasting BPPV treatment. Doctors will aim to remove the displaced calcium crystals inside the ear with the help of surgical instruments to effectively treat your BPPV symptoms once & for all.
The surgical approach is usually taken when all other BPPV treatment procedures fail, & your BPPV symptoms are getting worse overtime.
Want to know more about BPPV, its signs, symptoms, diagnosis, treatment, & prognosis? Visit www.vertigoandearclinic.com.
