Florence Hearing Health Care

05/21/2025

We love sharing hearing health information with our community! Christine Kelley, Au.D. will be at the Northampton Senior Center Health Fair today from 10 am to 1 pm! Stop by our table to meet Dr. Kelley and ask her your audiology questions!

03/20/2025

We love being a resource for our community! If you or a loved one is struggling to hear with your hearing aids, register to attend via the link below! Hearing aids have tiny microphones and speakers that can become clogged. We can clean these components to help you hear better!

Florence Hearing Health Care will be running an Audiology Hearing Aid Cleaning & Check on Thursday, March 20 at 11:00 am. There is no cost to this service but registration is required as place is limited.

Please give us a call at 413-587-1228 or sign up on myactivecenter.com to secure your space!

03/02/2025

Have you ever heard ringing or buzzing sounds in your ears? Sign up for a webinar through River Valley Co-op to join our audiologist, Dr. Anna Niemi, to learn more about tinnitus on Thursday, April 3rd from 7pm to 8pm! Click to sign up: https://rivervalley-coop.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_w7kDNkg4RmGFDYl5i1jnmg #/registration

10/24/2024

Audiology Awareness month in October happens to coincide with the 7th anniversary of Florence Hearing Health Care! We even had a birthday breakfast celebration! Thank you to everyone who attended!

10/09/2024

We are so proud to have been recognized as an outstanding practice! We could not have achieved this without our fantastic team!

09/10/2024

Did you know some medications cause or worsen hearing loss and tinnitus? Check with your prescribing physician to discuss your medications and don't make any changes without their guidance! If you have noticed hearing loss or tinnitus, call us at 413-776-1700 to schedule a hearing test!

Some medications are ototoxic, which means they can harm your ears, leading to hearing loss or tinnitus. These drugs include certain chemotherapy agents, antibiotics, pain relievers, and diuretics. In some cases, stopping the medication can reverse the damage, but sometimes it’s permanent. Depending on your health needs, the benefits of these drugs may outweigh the risks. In other cases, your doctor might suggest safer alternatives for your hearing. https://ow.ly/WTRx50ThSKE

09/02/2024

Have you or a loved one been diagnosed with diabetes? If so, call us at 413-776-1700 to schedule a hearing evaluation with one of our audiologists!

Ten Truths about Diabetes and Hearing Loss

• 1.) In people age 60 and older with type 2 diabetes, high blood sugar causes tiny blood vessels in the inner ear to break, disrupting sound reception.

• 2.) Microvascular changes, which often lead to nephropathy and retinopathy in diabetic patients, can affect the cochlear vasculature (inner ear blood supply).

• 3.) In one study, diabetes was associated with a 100% increased odds of low/mid-frequency hearing impairment and a 67% increased odds of high frequency hearing impairment in preliminary models after controlling for age, s*x, race/ethnicity, education, smoking, and occupational noise exposure.

• 4.) Creatinine level is a rough indicator of kidney function and tends to be elevated in diabetic patients. Increased creatinine levels in diabetic patients have also been correlated with increased hearing loss.

• 5.) A patient with diabetes, needs to have their hearing tested when first identified. Hearing loss is an invisible handicap. Thus, patients must be at least screened to determine if there is a hearing problem.

• 6.) Ongoing assessments of hearing levels, at least annually, is recommended as hearing loss - due to diabetes - can be progressive.

• 7.) The psychosocial effects of diabetic hearing loss should not be underestimated. People with hearing loss often show signs of withdrawal, cognitive loss, depression, social isolation, or psychosis.

• 8.) Encourage use of hearing aids if recommended from results of a hearing evaluation. A new hearing aid wearer usually needs 6-12 weeks to become adjusted to hearing aids.

• 9.) A recent National Council on Aging study of 2,069 people with hearing loss and 1,710 family members provides compelling evidence of the benefits of hearing aids, including improvement in emotional stability, interpersonal relationships, overall health, and cognitive function, and a reduction in anger, frustration, anxiety, social phobias, and depression. Don't let your a person with diabetes avoid use.

• 10.) Seek an audiologist for hearing services. Audiologists hold a Masters or Doctoral degree in hearing science and hearing habilitation.

09/01/2024

Do you have tinnitus (ringing or buzzing sounds in the ears)? The first step should be an evaluation with an audiologist! Call us at 413-776-1700 to schedule a hearing test to see if we can help!

Many new hearing aid wearers are pleasantly surprised to discover much their devices help with tinnitus. “I can’t even convey to people how wonderful it is,” says Linda, a hearing aid user in New Mexico. Hearing aids help in several ways. They restore lost sound signals to the brain, helping it to “forget” the annoying buzz of tinnitus in favor of real sounds. Hearing aids also reduce listening fatigue that can lead to tinnitus (no more stressful straining to hear all day!). If you struggle with tinnitus, you may have undiagnosed hearing loss and find hearing aids very helpful- talk to a hearing care provider about Oticon hearing aids today!

Learn more: https://www.healthyhearing.com/report/53312-Hearing-aids-for-tinnitus

08/20/2024

We LOVE this video of the Flintstones because it allows those without typical hearing to listen to what the world sounds like through increasing degrees of hearing loss! Make sure your sound is on and notice how even a mild hearing loss makes it harder to understand! If you or a loved one seem to be having hearing difficulty the best place to start is a 90 minute diagnostic hearing test with one of our licensed audiologists. We will go over your test results the same day so you leave the appointment knowing exactly where you are and we will take the time to answer your questions. Call us today at 413-776-1700 to schedule!