Hearing Matters Podcast Best Practices in Hearing Healthcare feat. Dr. Douglas L. Beck | Oticon
About the Hearing Matters Podcast
The Hearing Matters Podcast discusses hearing technology (more commonly known as hearing aids), best practices, and a growing national epidemic - Hearing Loss. The show is hosted by father and son - Blaise Delfino, M.S., HIS and Dr. Gregory Delfino, CCC-A. Blaise Delfino and Dr. Gregory Delfino treat patients with hearing loss at Audiology Services, located in Bethlehem, Nazareth, and East Stroudsburg, PA.
What are Best Practices?
Dr. Beck explains that best practices are not set by individuals in the hearing healthcare profession. They are determined and codified by a group of national organizations. The International Hearing Society, the American Academy of Audiology, and the American Speech and Language Hearing Association assemble groups of experts, who come together and decide what practitioners need to do for their patients. They use outcomes-based research to make their determinations.
Best practices include, but are not limited to: air and bone conduction, word recognition, speech reception thresholds, otoacoustic missions, ipsi and contralateral reflexes, tympanometry, speech in noise testing, and communication and listening assessments.
Why are Best Practices Important?
Best practices follow the primary thought used by physicians: diagnose first, treat second. A physician will not prescribe antibiotics simply because a person has a cold. The cold could be caused by a virus, and antibiotics would not help. As with medical care, hearing healthcare is not one size fits all. Research has shown that people who go to practitioners who use best practices do much better than those who do not. Audiology Service strictly adheres to best practices, and only one percent of patients return because they are unhappy with their hearing instruments.
Real Ear Measurement
A procedure known as real ear verifies that the fitting the practitioner does is meeting the standards and is giving the patient the best possible hearing experience and meeting his/her goals. About 50 percent of hearing healthcare practitioners use real ear, but only about one in five use it on every patient.
To do real ear the practitioner inserts an incredibly small microphone into the ear canal within five millimeters of the ear drum. A measurement is taken to determine how the patient’s ear canal responds to sound. The measurement is taken again with the hearing aid in the patient’s ear. The practitioner measures to determine if the hearing aid is producing the sound curve that is correct. If not, the patient may hear loud noises too loudly and soft noises not loud enough. The practitioner wants to get the most power for the quietest sounds and not increase the power when a sound is normally loud to the patient. If a hearing aid is not adjusted properly with real ear, the patient may suffer damage to his/her auditory system.
Discussions with the Patient
Dr. Beck explains that having a discussion with the patient is far better than giving him/her a questionnaire to fill out. It helps the patient feel secure with the practitioner’s expertise and gives the practitioner the chance to fully understand what the patient is experiencing and how
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