Patient Resources
A hearing aid detects sound. It does not teach you how to hold a conversation across a noisy table, and it does not put you in touch with anyone else living with hearing loss. These cover the parts a device does not.
Ask at your next appointment, or call 650-342-9449 and say which one you want.
At a glance
- We enroll patients in three training programs: 5 Keys, clEAR and LACE. Fitting devices is not the whole of what we do.
- The Ida Institute and HLAA offer free, independent education and peer support for people living with hearing loss.
- Ask at your appointment or call 650-342-9449 and we will help you pick the program that fits how you struggle to hear.
The Ida Institute
The Ida Institute is an independent, non-profit organization working to build a community that embraces person-centered care. Together with clinicians, academics, and people with hearing loss around the world, Ida helps people develop the knowledge, skills, and confidence to better manage hearing loss. California Hearing Center was the first clinic in the world to receive the Inspired by Ida label. Learn more at idainstitute.com.
We're all ears
Helping people hear starts with knowing how to listen. We ask what you need and recommend from there. That is what person-centered care means in practice. Ida's We're All Ears materials are the patient half of that: they set out what to tell your audiologist, and what to bring to the appointment so the hour is spent on your problem rather than on working out what it is.
Hearing Loss Association of America (HLAA)
HLAA is the main U.S. consumer organization for people with hearing loss. It runs local chapters and meetings, publishes material for the families, coworkers and teachers around a person as well as for the person themselves, and campaigns on captioning and access. If what you want is other people who already live with this, rather than another clinician explaining it, this is the one to look at. Learn more at hearingloss.org.
5 Keys to Communication Success
5 Keys Communication is a program we enroll patients in directly. It teaches the practical strategies that hearing aids do not cover: where to sit, how to set up a room, what to ask the other person to do, and what to do when you have missed something for the third time. You get a communication handbook and weekly eLessons covering strategies, hearing aid tips, other hearing-enhancement technologies, activities, and links to consumer organizations. Ask us how to sign you up.
clEAR auditory training
clEAR is computer-game-based listening training you do at home. According to research from Washington University in St. Louis cited by the program, clEAR improves speech discrimination, meaning your ability to recognize words accurately, and reduces the mental effort listening takes, so it becomes less exhausting. Every subscription includes ongoing contact and guidance from a clEAR hearing healthcare professional. Untreated hearing loss is associated with social isolation, and the Lancet Commission on dementia prevention lists it as the largest modifiable risk factor in midlife. Those are associations rather than proven cause, and training your listening is worth doing on its own terms. Ask us about signing up.
LACE by Neurotone
LACE (Listening and Communication Enhancement) is a web-based auditory training program developed by audiologists. The program reports that it retrains the brain to comprehend speech substantially better in difficult listening situations. The idea is similar to physical therapy: hearing aids detect sound, but they do not by themselves change listening, communication, and comprehension. LACE's modules cover speech-in-noise (picking a voice out of a noisy room), rapid speech (understanding fast talkers), competing speakers (locking on to the voice you want), and word memory (training your brain to fill in the blanks). Ask us about signing up.
How to get started with any of these
Several of these programs are ones we enroll patients in directly. The simplest route is to mention it at your next appointment, or call us on 650-342-9449 and say which program you are interested in. If you are not sure which would help most, we will talk it through against how and where you actually struggle to hear.