September 27, 2007

This week I was able to see quite a few clients in the clinic. One client I saw was a man who worked construction and wore his hearing aids all the time. He had come to the clinic over the summer because one of his aid had broken and he came back this week for the same problem. At first, we thought we would be able to patch the aid, but after inspecting the damage, the hairline fracture in the shell was too long for us to fix and still help the client. I made a new ear mold for this man and we sent the mold and the hearing aid back to Oticon so it could be re-cased. This man reminded me a lot of my dad, and how he would probably take care of his aids.

I found an article about hearing aid maintenance that I thought was pretty interesting. While the article studied students, I think it is applicable to most hearing aid users. In the article, they studied children between the ages of 6-19 years who were trained to monitor their own hearing aids. The results from this study showed that the students had improved hearing aid function when they were actively involved in a hearing aid maintenance program. This study helped to show just how important it is to discuss cleaning and maintenance of the hearing aid with our clients.

Reference:
Lipscomb, M., Von Almen, P., and Blair, J.C. (1992). Students as active participants in hearing aid maintenance. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools 23, 208-213.
http://lshss.asha.org/cgi/reprint/23/3/208?maxtoshow=