Communication Needs Assessment

Hearing Aid Candidacy

Each patient has different communication needs; that can range from difficulty hearing on the telephone or television, hearing a normal one-on-one conversation, to complex background noise environments, such as a restaurant. Not everyone needs hearing devices. There are many assistive devices that can be used either alone or with hearing devices to help these specific situations.

Therefore, is it important to assess where your communication problems are occurring, how often they occur and determine what options are available for you to solve your areas of concern. We want to see the whole picture of your communication needs. Each patient is different, just as each hearing loss is different. We customize our recommendations for your specific needs using the following…


TEST RESULTS

Speech Recognition/Understanding: Determined based on the accuracy to which you can understand actual speech when sound is amplified appropriately for your hearing loss.

Speech-in-Noise Testing: Hearing test that quickly and easily measures the ability to hear in noise. Speech understanding in noise cannot be reliably predicted from the pure tone audiogram or other standard audiometric tests.

Pure-tone Audiometry: Hearing test used to identify hearing threshold levels of an individual, enabling determination of the degree, type and configuration of a hearing loss through the use of frequency specific channels.

*Please refer HERE for more information on the audiological testing process*


LEVEL OF HEARING LOSS 

Mild Hearing Loss: Difficulty hearing faint or distant speech, difficulty in mild background noise.

Moderate Hearing Loss: Cannot hear faint speech, difficulty with conversational level speech, moderate difficulty with background noise.

Severe Hearing Loss: Cannot hear conversational speech, difficulty with loud speech, severe difficulty with background noise.

Profound Hearing Loss: Cannot hear loud speech, difficulty hearing loud sounds.


HEARING LIFESTYLE
Quiet Lifestyle: A quiet lifestyle requires hearing aids for adult one-on-one conversations, shopping trips, doctors appointments or other short outings.
Relaxed Lifestyle: A relaxed lifestyle requires hearing aids for listening environments that accommodate occasional background noise for situations such as: small group and family gatherings, quiet restaurant dining, and church gatherings.
Active Lifestyle: Active lifestyles require hearing aids that are designed for individuals that are in listening environments that include frequent background noise for situations such as: group events or meetings, noisy restaurant dining,  enjoying of music and video entertainment, and large outdoor/indoor gatherings.