Hearing Economics

“Signal & Noise” is a bimonthly, or sometimes monthly, column by Brian Taylor, AuD.   Selecting and fitting hearing aids is, and will continue to be for the foreseeable future, the primary tool audiologists and hearing instrument specialists use to address the needs of adults with hearing loss. Today, it is the hearing aid that generates the primary stream of

Recent patent and Hearables posts alluded to augmented reality Apotheke Vienna  (AR) without defining the term.  Audiologists think of “AR” as a professional activity called Aural Rehabilitation, not a recreational activity like Augmented Reality. If we think of augmented reality at all,  it’s as  an iTunes app to beam us off the transporter pad with William Shatner.  Unbeknownst to most of us,

“Peeling the Onion” is a monthly column by Harvey Abrams, PhD I concluded last month’s post by describing The Chronic Care Model (CCM); Wagner, 1998) which consists of six components considered critical for improving outcomes among patients with chronic health conditions: Self-Management Support Delivery System Design Decision Support Clinical Information Systems Organization of Health Care Community Assuming you bought my

“Signal & Noise” is a bimonthly column by Brian Taylor, AuD.   In addition to fitting conventional hearing aids, audiologists and hearing instrument specialists may have the opportunity to adapt an à la carte approach to technology with a menu of offerings tailored to the “just good enough” needs of the individual. This menu may include PSAPs, hearables, devices like

Amidst all the crowd-funded Hearable hype, with Nanoplug coming unplugged and others sure to follow, the Big 6 and a few well-seasoned companies and visionaries continue to quietly and efficiently amp up technology for ear-level applications.  Today’s lengthy list of new patents in the last half of this post shows the Big 6 firmly in the saddle, at a fast

Hearing Economics is pleased to announce Brian Taylor as a new columnist.  Dr. Taylor plans to help us get to core concepts in a series of bimonthly discussions entitled “Signal & Noise.”  Today’s post marks his debut column, describing actual data to bear on outcomes from available ear-level amplification technologies.  Welcome, Brian, and thanks for bringing data with you!  

“Peeling the Onion” is a monthly column by Harvey Abrams, PhD. In last month’s post, I discussed the influence of our profession’s early history on our current self-perception of audiology as a medical model of care and suggested that we may want to consider reframing our profession as a rehabilitative discipline.  In fact, there are other possible models for us

These are the best of times and the worst of times, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us. (channeling Dickens for Audiologists) online pharmacy buy aciclovir no prescription pharmacy Audiologists may agree that we are living in extreme times.  It’s gratifying to practice our profession in the “communication obsessed 2000s” (Ridley, 2010), with ear-level devices at hand as

The sudden emergence of Hearables as a disruptive wearable technology threatens to relegate hearing aids to the gadget bin.  So goes the view in the popular media.  That view is formed and informed by characteristic rapid change and constant innovation in the consumer electronics industry. But, the popular view is not fully informed. Those used to reviewing or knocking out novel electronic

Last week’s Hearables post highlighted some emerging ear-level devices and left three rhetorical questions dangling: What  groups decide which are medical devices and which are consumer devices? Who gets final say on who sells them and how they are sold? Will hearing aids morph into consumer electronic gadgets? Current thinking on that last question brings up thoughts that were previously