Dealing with hearing loss isn’t easy, particularly when you are just coming to terms with the impairment.

Audio Help Hearing Centers in New York City and Stamford, Connecticut hosts monthly aural rehabilitation classes to provide an open, supportive environment with other individuals in similar situations. The offerings are ideal for patients who have purchased new hearing aids and may be struggling to communicate effectively.

The classes aim to improve quality of life through addressing hearing loss and its impact on personal relationships, employment, hobbies and more. Part of the classes’ focus is looking at how the brain is impacted by hearing loss and how it can be “retrained.”

Did you know hearing aids aren’t just for your ears?

It’s true – today’s devices can benefit many other parts of the body and life in general. Audio Help Hearing Centers in New York City and Stamford, Connecticut take a look at some of the surprising ways hearing aids can help improve your quality of life in addition to the quality of your hearing ability.

Everyone knows diet plays a large part in our overall health, but how many of us consider the impact eating has on our hearing?

It turns out that what we put into our bodies plays a significant role in how well we hear. Research indicates that a diet high in fruits and vegetables can actually slash the risk of hearing loss by 30%.

Audio Help Hearing Centers in New York City, Scarsdale and Stamford reminds you that diet can indeed help impact hearing health.

The increasingly popular Mediterranean diet – a plant-based diet that includes nuts and whole grains – can help fight hearing loss. This diet recommends using olive and canola oil instead of butter, herbs and spices instead of salt, fish and poultry in place of red meat. Limit processed foods and sugary drinks, although a glass of wine is permitted at dinner.

Better hearing doesn’t just come to you. You have to go after it.  

With May’s designation as Better Hearing and Speech Month, it’s an ideal time to take the initiative and make your hearing health a priority. The month’s theme is “Communication Across the Lifespan.”

Audio Help Hearing Centers in New York City and Connecticut reminds you that you can begin experiencing better communication across your lifespan by getting annual hearing exams starting at the age of 55. If hearing loss is detected by one of our audiologists, we can determine the best hearing aids for you and help you adjust to life with better hearing.

Dining out at a favorite restaurant with family, friends and business associates should be an enjoyable experience, but hearing loss can make it more frustrating than pleasurable.

Background noises are in full effect at most dining establishments. The chatter of other diners, music on the sound system, the clanging of silverware on plates, and sounds from the kitchen can all make it more difficult to focus on the desired conversation at your table.

The dining trend toward minimalist, industrial spaces has not been kind to those with hearing loss. Bare floors, high ceilings, and sparse use of fabric such as curtains or tablecloths mean all those sounds are just bouncing around the room. Speech can become almost impossible to hear unless the person is speaking directly into your ear.

Research shows that cancer survivors receiving chemotherapy are more likely to experience auditory issues such as hearing loss and tinnitus.

In a study of more than 600 survivors published in the Journal of Cancer Survivorship, nearly 70% of those receiving neurotoxic chemotherapy experienced chemotherapy-induced neuropathy (CIN). CIN may include nerve and musculoskeletal pain. From this group, 48% experienced hearing loss and/or tinnitus, while 42% without CIN experienced some form of auditory issues.

Do you get angry when you hear someone chewing their food?

Does loud breathing make you want to punch the perpetrator?

If you have emotional reactions to sounds, you may have misophonia.

There are currently no drugs available that treat hearing loss. At present, patients have to opt for hearing aids or cochlear implants, which don’t address the root cause of hearing loss.

Damage to the sensory hair cells in the cochlea – known as sensorineural hearing loss – is a major cause of hearing loss acquired later in life: 90% of cases of hearing loss are sensorineural. Overall, 1 in 6 people in the UK – and around half a billion people worldwide and over 360 million people worldwide – have hearing loss.

Hair cell loss has long been thought to be irreversible, but various earlier studies in animals indicate that functioning inner ear sensory hair cells may be regenerated through the use of a small molecule substance called a gamma-secretase inhibitor.

Although the reason for the link is unknown, studies have found that diabetics are twice as likely as people without diabetes to develop hearing loss.

With March 26 being Diabetes Awareness Day, Audio Help Hearing Centers want to encourage you to learn more about this connection.

New York recently joined other states in eliminating the term “hearing impaired” from its law books, deeming it offensive.

In doing so, The Empire State became the third state to remove the term from its books, following Utah and New Hampshire. At least 25 references to individuals with hearing loss were changed from “hearing impaired” to “deaf” or “hard of hearing.”