The height of discretion

Long gone are the days when a hearing aid was a large, obvious, embarrassing beige-coloured prosthesis with poor performance. Just like computers and mobile telephones from a decade ago, modern hearing aids are now available as much smaller devices and they perform in unthinkable ways compared to ten years ago. The best type of hearing assistance depends on the level of hearing loss, lifestyle and size of ear canal. However, they are all significantly less noticeable than trying to cope unaided with hearing difficulties. Nothing is more obvious than frequently asking people to repeat themselves.

Fractal tones help tinnitus

Tinnitus is a ringing or buzzing in one or both ears and although many people have experienced this condition temporarily after being in a noisy environment or whilst suffering from a head cold, for over 7 million people in the UK, it never goes away.

Tinnitus has been and still is the object of extensive research in terms of establishing effective treatment methods or management strategies. Tinnitus is for many a distressing noise leading to increased stress and affected quality of life. As stress is one of the highest exacerbating factors involved with tinnitus, stress reduction is a vital element in effective tinnitus management. To this end and inspired by the relaxing effect of certain types of music, Widex, a Danish hearing instrument manufacturing company, developed ‘Zen’ programs to help tinnitus sufferers.

Based on what is known as fractal technology which ensures that the music is predictable without repeating itself, Zen is a unique music program available in some Widex hearing instruments. Zen plays random, chime-like tones that can be used for relaxation and for making tinnitus less noticeable.

An experiment was conducted in 2009 at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) to determine the effectiveness of fractal tones, contained within this hearing instrument, with tinnitus patients. The experiment concluded that fractal tones corrected for hearing loss are effective in relaxing the tinnitus sufferer, as well as reducing the annoyance of tinnitus.

To find out more information on this technology, simply contact us or call us on 0131 220 1220.

Happy New Year from House of Hearing!

2012 is upon us, and all of us at House of Hearing wish you a very peaceful and prosperous year ahead. It's time, of course, for New Year resolutions, and perhaps time to get your hearing checked. Hearing voices clearly on TV is often a problem for people who have even a mild degree of hearing loss, and often people aren't aware of how much technology is available these days to assist with this.

From specialist infra-red TV listeners, to state of the art hearing aids which will receive a direct wireless transmission from a small device attached to the TV, there are many options which take the headache out of trying to hear what's going on.

If your festive TV-watching has left you with complaints about the volume ringing in your ears, fatigue from concentrating so hard to follow the dialogue, or even a sense of anti-climax from having read the punchline on subtitles a few seconds before it was actually delivered, come in for a free hearing check and a chat.

Beat the January blues by improving your hearing... and your quality of life.