Inquiries

Call: 585-225-1100 or Email:

amorabito@hearingaidscenter.com
cadamson@hearingaidscenter.com
ksharp@hearingaidscenter.com

Please do not use email for urgent matters or questions or to convey confidential medical information.

Do you regularly screen your patients for hearing loss?
Among the goals of the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders ‘Healthy Hearing 2010’ is to increase the number of people who schedule periodic hearing examinations. Help us achieve this goal in Rochester!

Pediatricians

Hearing loss in newborns
The first six months of an infant’s life are critical for intervention. During this period, the brain is able to allow a hearing impaired infant to develop excellent language skills. If intervention occurs after this time, the prognosis for normal language development decreases significantly.

All children, regardless of their hearing ability, go through a babbling phase. If a child stops verbalizing after this phase, seek help immediately.

Some forms of hearing loss appear later as a child grows and develops. For this reason, not only should children have their hearing screened at birth, but they should be tested and diagnosed any time a hearing loss is suspected. This is also true for adults.

Hearing loss in children 
Otitis Media, an inflammation in the middle ear is the most common cause of hearing loss – usually, conductive and temporary. However when Otitis Media occurs over and over again, damage to the eardrum, the bones of the ear, or even the hearing nerve can occur and cause a permanent, sensorineural hearing loss.

Otitis Media occurs because, the eustachian tube is smaller and more horizontal in children than in adults. Therefore, it can be more easily blocked by conditions such as large adenoids and infections.

Learn more

Fast Facts on Hearing Health

• Otitis media, or middle ear infection, is the most frequent reason cited for taking children to see a doctor.
• Sensorineural damage—nerve deafness—is the most common form of hearing loss affecting some 26 million Americans.
• Approximately 10 million persons in the US have permanent hearing loss from noise or trauma.

Hearing loss and Alzheimer’s disease have similar symptoms

Alzheimer's	Hearing loss
Reduced language skills	Reduced ability to communicate
Cognitive impairment	Less cognitive input
Improper psychosocial reactions	Improper psychosocial reactions
Anxiety, disorientation, depression	Anxiety, sense of isolation, depression
Distrust of others' motives	Belief that others are talking about them

Obtaining a diagnosis from a well-trained medical professional is the only way to know for sure that it is Alzheimer’s, and that the symptoms are not due to other causes.

Sources:
U.S. National Library of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health