The 44 Sounds Hearing Aid Clinic

08/18/2025

https://www.facebook.com/share/r/19UbiH22eJ/?mibextid=wwXIfr

08/07/2025

08/01/2025

The clinic will be closed on the following dates

• Friday, August 22, 2025
• Saturday, August 23, 2025
• Tuesday, August 26, 2025
• Wednesday, August 27, 2025

Please plan your appointments accordingly.
We will reopen on Thursday, August 28, 2025, with regular hours.

07/29/2025

In Memoriam: Brian Morris (1962–2025)

I'm deeply saddened to share that my client, Brian Morris, passed away on July 27, 2025, at the age of 62 after a fast and unexpected battle with cancer.

Brian had not yet reached retirement. He leaves behind a young son and had recently brought a dog into his life—plans for the future that were abruptly cut short.

His passing is a stark and painful reminder of how fragile and unpredictable life can be. My thoughts are with his family during this incredibly difficult time.

07/11/2025

Aging and Social Withdrawal: Brain Network Shifts May Be a Hidden Driver

New research shows that social withdrawal in older adults may be tied not just to external circumstances, but to functional changes in brain network connectivity as we age.

A study published in PLOS ONE found that:

Decreased connectivity between the frontoparietal and default mode networks (DMN) is associated with lower self-esteem, impaired cognition, and reduced sociability.

Increased connectivity in limbic-insular circuits, often activated in social exclusion, may increase emotional sensitivity in aging.

These changes may undermine emotional regulation, communication, and assertiveness — key components of sociability.

Using resting-state fMRI from 196 healthy participants aged 20–77, researchers linked network shifts with scores on a sociability scale. They found that both increased and decreased connectivity patterns independently mediated the relationship between age and sociability.

Bottom line: Social withdrawal with age isn't just a psychological or environmental problem. It's possibly neurologically encoded. Interventions targeting sociability should consider the neural dimension, not just social opportunity.

Citation:
Anderson, P. (2025, June 4). Social Withdrawal in Aging Tied to Shifts in Brain Networks. Medscape Medical News.
https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/social-withdrawal-aging-tied-shifts-brain-networks-2025a1000f29

07/09/2025

37% of US Adults Face Moderate-to-Severe Loneliness — It’s a Public Health Signal, Not Just a Social One

New data from the 2021–2022 Health Information National Trends Survey show that over one-third of U.S. adults experience significant loneliness, with 14% reporting it at severe levels.

Risk groep:
Young adults (18–34)
Lower-income individuals
Those identifying as gay or le***an
People with depression or short sleep duration
Adults with multiple chronic illnesses (especially heart and lung disease)

Implications:
This isn’t a vague emotional issue — severe loneliness correlates with poorer health outcomes, including higher rates of depression, chronic disease, and even mortality.

Researchers stress the need for targeted health screenings and preventive strategies, especially for vulnerable groups. Loneliness isn’t evenly distributed — it follows clear socioeconomic and health-related lines.

Citation:
Talwadekar, M. (Ed.). (2025, June 16). Loneliness Among US Adults: A Growing Concern? Medscape Medical News.
https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/loneliness-among-us-adults-growing-concern-2025a1000g0i

07/09/2025

Everyone says "Canada's healthcare system is broken" but most don’t actually dig into why. Canada’s healthcare isn’t public in the way people think—it’s publicly funded but privately delivered. Doctors are private contractors. Clinics are private businesses. Hospitals are run like corporations. The government just pays the bill. So, yes—just because they bill the government doesn’t make them public in behavior or motivation. The system pays per visit, per procedure, per diagnostic code. There is zero financial incentive for prevention, follow-up, or long-term results. The more they see, the more they make. Time equals money. Quantity equals profit. And because most physicians are self-employed under this structure, they’re stuck in that model whether they like it or not.

“Broken” really means overloaded and unaccountable. Wait times are extreme—not because of lack of funding alone, but because there’s no structural efficiency. There’s no consequence for bad outcomes, no penalty for wasted time or misdiagnosis. The system is bloated with admin layers, gatekeeping, and bottlenecks—all while patients get sicker waiting.

Just like in traffic, people are frustrated by the delays without realizing they’re part of the volume. But the system was designed to encourage dependence instead of self-management. Example: endless repeat visits for prescriptions or referrals that could be handled more efficiently—but aren’t, because that’s how the money flows.

Canada’s healthcare isn’t broken because it’s “too public.” It’s broken because it’s a public payer system feeding a private incentive structure that rewards throughput—not health. The fact that billing goes to the government is irrelevant—if the behavior is profit-seeking, it functions like a private system. People waiting 18 months for surgery while providers bill millions for appointments that solve nothing—that’s the result. The system isn’t “overwhelmed by demand,” it’s designed to prioritize transaction over transformation.

Send a message to learn more

07/08/2025

Earwax and Parkinson’s? New Research Says Yes

A new study suggests that earwax may hold volatile organic compounds (VOCs) capable of identifying Parkinson’s disease (PD) with 94% accuracy using AI-assisted analysis.

Researchers identified four distinct compounds — ethylbenzene, 4-ethyltoluene, pentanal, and 2-pentadecyl-1,3-dioxolane — that significantly differed in people with PD compared to controls. Using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry and a convolutional neural network, the model reached an AUC of 0.98 — highly accurate for a biological screen.

Why earwax? It’s more chemically stable than surface skin sebum and easier to collect in clinical settings.

However,
This was a single-center, small-scale study (209 participants).
Results may be influenced by confounders like hygiene, medication, diet, and environment.
Reproducibility in larger, multi-center, and ethnically diverse cohorts is still unproven.

If future studies confirm these findings, this could offer a noninvasive, low-cost diagnostic aid for PD — potentially even a bedside screening tool.

Citation:
Brauser, D. (2025, July 1). Earwax Secretions May Help Detect Parkinson’s Disease. Medscape Medical News. https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/earwax-secretions-may-help-detect-parkinsons-disease-2025a1000hj

07/01/2025

If you want to love Canada, start by loving its people. That’s the only kind of patriotism that has power.
People who’ve never lived, worked, or struggled in another country often think life must be better elsewhere — better systems, better families, better everything. But once you actually live abroad and deal with the reality — paying bills, navigating healthcare, handling paperwork, trying to build new relationships from scratch — you realize: no place is perfect, and no one has it all together.
I’ve seen families that looked flawless on the outside slowly come undone. Marriages with no balance. Kids quietly carry the weight of being overlooked or unfairly treated. When you get close enough, the cracks always show.
We complain — about money, services, traffic, and we forget that we are the traffic, we are the system. If you want to live in a better place, start by asking what you’ve actually done to make it better. Not what you believe, but what you’ve done. Did you bring patience? Did you help anyone? Did you really show up for your own family?
Change doesn’t come from big speeches or new rules. It starts with how we treat each other, every day. Take care of your family — not just on birthdays, but in the everyday moments. Then look beyond them. Care for the people around you. Most of what’s falling apart isn’t because we don’t have enough — it’s because we stopped caring.
Change isn’t fast. It happens slowly, piece by piece. A country is no different. Living somewhere is easy. Belonging takes effort. Giving even more so.
Canada Day isn’t about flags or fireworks. It’s a moment to ask yourself: do I treat this place like home — or just a location? A home survives on care. Without it, it slowly dies.

06/20/2025

Losing your hearing
slowly changes your identity—without you noticing.
Hearing aids help you stay the person you’ve always been