Audiology is a relatively young profession. It grew out of the need to diagnose and treat veterans returning from World War II with significant hearing loss.
In the late 1940's and early 1950's, there were very few hearing aids available, and those that were available were unable to address the basic needs of someone with a sensorineural hearing loss, the most common type. So, in addition to hearing aids, audiologists also performed auditory rehabilitation with patients a process counseling and instructing on better listening strategies.
Unfortunately, auditory rehabilitation at that time was very, very time consuming, which limited its effectiveness. Patients certainly saw benefit, but only after hours and hours of effort.
Fortunately, as time went by, hearing aids became better and better at addressing hearing loss. And so, in the decades since, auditory rehabilitation was often discarded by both patients and audiologists in favor of the more time-efficient hearing aid. But, as advanced as hearing aids have become in recent years -- and they've become very advanced -- and as much benefit as they provide for people with hearing loss, they're still unable to help patients to fully achieve the final portion of their hearing potential.
Coincidentally, just as computer technology has advanced hearing aids, it can now advance auditory rehabilitation. A program called L.A.C.E., short for "Listening and Communication Enhancement" has been developed by researchers at the University of California-San Francisco that makes auditory rehabilitation much less time consuming and much more effective.
In a nutshell, the program, installed on a patient's home computer or laptop, includes exercises that a that are performed in the comfort of their own home at any time of day or night they prefer. The exercises are approximately 20 to 30 minutes long and should be done twenty times in thirty days in order to maximize benefit.
Numerous research studies have shown that when the exercises are performed by someone who also uses hearing aids, the person receives a statistically significantly greater amount of benefit from their hearing aids. But the program isn't just for hearing aid users, patients with normal hearing or unaided hearing loss can also benefit. Anyone who uses the software will see improvement in their ability to understand rapid speech, speech in noise, and to piece together the meaning of sentences when certain words are inaudible or removed.
The software is very easy to install, very easy to use, and patients' progress is uploaded to a private server for an audiologist to review.
We've used L.A.C.E. at Aberdeen Audiology and we've had so much success with it that we wanted to make sure all of our patients know the service is available. Call us today to schedule an appointment to find out of you are a candidate for L.A.C.E.
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