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OTC hearing aids: where are we now?

The ‘Over-the-Counter Hearing Aid Act’ of 2017 set in motion plans for a long-debated shift in the hearing care market. In 2021, the FDA released draft guidance which will allow hearing aids in the US to be sold direct to...

How to identify and support adults with auditory processing disorder: a focus on low-gain devices and auditory training

Some adults struggle with hearing in noise despite normal audiograms. Tools like the HHIA, low-gain devices and auditory training can help identify and support these cases. In this article, Angela Alexander and Fatima Abbas use a case study to discuss...

Optimising hearing aid processing for music appreciation

Hearing aid manufacturers’ main focus has, up until recently, been improvement of speech intelligibility. Today’s hearing aid users have much broader demands however and often cite improved music perception as a key outcome or goal. Drs Tish Ramirez and Rebecca...

The role of metrics in studies of hearing and cognition

Introduction When perceiving sounds in real-world listening environments, older adults encounter several sources of degradation that can interfere with the perceptual process (Figure 1). Target signals (i.e. the sounds that a listener wants to focus on) have specific acoustic characteristics...

Cochlear implantation in children with congenital single-sided deafness

To date, there has been very limited data supporting the effectiveness of early provision of a cochlear implant to the deaf ear in infants with congenital single-sided deafness. In this article, the authors share their pioneering work with this special...

Screening for hearing aid fittings – an approach for primary care

Introduction The communication difficulties related to hearing loss can lead to ‘depression, social withdrawal and problems with employment and access to information sources’ [1]. Furthermore, unmanaged hearing loss is associated with dementia, a poorer quality of life, depression, anxiety and...

Understanding new and emerging categories of hearing devices

The hearing device landscape is rapidly changing, and what should be given, to whom, and why, are questions that many hearing healthcare professionals are asking. Brent Edwards discusses these questions and how consumer characteristics may influence their choice. In 2016,...

The ear-brain connection in cochlear implant users: learning to listen again

While the cochlear implant (CI) has been a tremendous success in restoring hearing to deaf individuals, the implantation outcome still varies across CI users [1]. Some demographic factors, such as duration of deafness, and peripheral factors, such as electrode placement,...

Drug side-effects on audiological and vestibular testing

Are they a malingerer? Or perhaps they are inattentive? It may be their drugs! Robert DiSogra considers the side-effects of medication on the test subject. The audiogram serves many purposes in clinical practice. For the audiologist, it helps to differentiate...