As Treasure Valley Hearing & Balance’s contracted Marketer, I work out of my home office.  Only occasionally do I have the opportunity to interface with patients as they come into the clinic for their appointments.  But when I was there a couple of weeks ago, Kenny Krenz was there.  He started bubbling about how much he loved coming to Treasure Valley Hearing & Balance.  He reminisced about how long ago it had been since he had met Jacquie Elcox at the Western Idaho State Fair in Boise, where she had a hearing care booth…over 20 years ago.  Treasure Valley Hearing and Balance was just an infant at the time, having begun in 1990.

Kenny said there were times when his wife suggested he might find hearing aids cheaper elsewhere.  But Kenny refused to go anywhere else because he sees value in all we provide.  It is not just about price, but value.  He knows we will work to enable him to hear at his utmost.  He knows we care about him as an individual, not just a paying customer.

Kenny agreed to put his words to paper so we could share them with all of you.

Here it is in Kenny’s words:

“I could see then [Jacquie] cared about my hearing, and her staff cares too.  They all care about making sure the aids fit right and you can hear the right sounds.  And all the staff are so much fun to talk with and joke with.

But the most important thing I can hear my family, my wife and kids and listen to the TV at a lower level, and my family asks me to turn up the TV because it’s too low.  What a great feeling that is.

So Jacquie, thank you so very much for 20 years of hearing.

P.S. Staff keep up the awesome work you do for us all.”  Kenny Krenz

• Hearing impaired individuals may experience reduced anxiety and increased success with their devices and their ability to communicate.
• Quality of life is affected when AR includes psychosocial and informational content.
• Greater feeling of satisfaction with their hearing devices and with the clinic providing the AR.
• Greater amount of time spent focused on retraining than a patient would get in a traditional setting where hearing aids are dispensed and the audiologist addresses communication strategies only as part of a limited-time appointment.
• Generally hearing aid wearers require fewer follow-up appointments when attending AR sessions.

According to the article “Group Audiologic Rehabilitation for Adults:  Ten Reasons to Add This Service to Private Practice” by Linda M. Thibodeau, PhD, CCC-A/SLP & Jennifer A. Alford, BA, a perfect analogy to better understand the overall effects of AR is this:  “A [hearing professional] that includes hearing aid dispensing without an option for group AR sessions to address communication strategies, speech-reading, and coping skills is like giving a novice photographer an expensive camera without the instruction manual:  the fledgling photographer will not get the full benefits of the camera’s features.”

A licensed audiologist ordinarily conducts these classes.  He may facilitate the group so that participants become mentors for each other.  In fact, studies show that when this methodology is used, participants generally get the greatest rewards from the sessions.

These classes are now being conducted in the Treasure Valley.  As part of Treasure Valley Hearing & Balance’s mission to ensure every patient gets the most out of their investment in their hearing aids, they have recently started offering regular Hear Well ~ Live Well Communication Skills classes.  Led by Dr. Mel Miller, Ph.D., CCC-A, they are designed to

Dr. Mel Miller, Ph.D., CCC-A

guide people with hearing difficulties to a better understanding of the intricacies of the hearing process and to help them develop strategies for handling difficult listening situations.  Participants are encouraged to assume responsibility for managing their communication settings and will be shown how to get the most out of their assistive devices.  These classes are also designed to help family members and friends understand the challenges of hearing loss and to demonstrate techniques to make communication more effective.  They are open to the public at no charge, and should be especially helpful for:  a) new users of hearing instruments; b) veteran users of hearing instruments who want to increase their communication skills; c) people who have tried hearing instruments, but were unsuccessful with them; d) people who currently do not wear hearing instruments, but are experiencing communication difficulties.

The classes are offered at two levels and are well suited for both the hearing impaired and their significant others, including family members and friends.  Class A is for patients who have either just been fitted with hearing aids or who are contemplating devices but don’t yet wear them. The class will provide a backdrop as to how the ear works, why you may be experiencing hearing loss, what it is like to live with hearing loss, goals and expectations of hearing instruments, “care and feeding” of hearing instruments and basic communication strategies.

Class B is a follow-on class for those having just attended Class A, or for those who are a bit more sophisticated already in the wearing of hearing devices. Non-hearing aid wearers can also benefit from this class.  It will go over more advanced strategies for effective communications for those with hearing loss as well as for those communicating with someone with hearing loss.  Analyzing communication problems and learning appropriate actions toward them will be covered.

The class schedule is generally:

Class A:  3^rd Thursdays of each month, 1 PM

Class B:  2nd & 4^th Thursday of each month, 10AM & 1PM respectively

In February 2012, Class B will be held on Tuesday February 14 as an exception to the rule.

The schedule can be checked at anytime at www.treasurevalleyhearing.com/news.php.

Classes are held at Unity Health Center at 745 S. Progress Ave. in Meridian.

Register with Debbie by calling 208-377-0019.

• “retraining” the brain
• acoustic therapy
• the roll hearing instruments can play in the overall treatment
• how much time these treatments may take for you to see a difference
• news about some current research that might lead to a tinnitus cure.
• the American Tinnitus Association’s Top 5 suggestions for tinnitus sufferers

Dr. Mel Miller, Ph.D., CCC-A will be discussing these topics:

Week 1 (December 7, 2011):  Tinnitus Overview

Week 2 (December 14, 2011):  Tinnitus Causes

Week 3 (December 21, 2011):  Tinnitus Cures

Week 4 (December 28, 2011):  Tinnitus Proven Treatment Plans and Cures

Tune in for each post or subscribe to the RSS feed in our blog so they appear either in your RSS reader or email.

And now with Week 1, Tinnitus Overview:

The Starkey Hearing Foundation’s mission is “Change the social consciousness of hearing and hearing matters through education and research while providing the gift of hearing to those in need around the world.”  The foundation was started in 1984 and is called “So the World May Hear”.  They conduct hearing fitting missions with providers who donate their time to the events.  The missions are held throughout the world:  Africa, Asia, Europe & Middle East, Central & Caribbean, Mexico, South America and the United States. Click here for a complete list of the missions around the globe.

During the month of October, 2011, Jacquie Elcox, CEO of Treasure Valley Hearing & Balance and her husband Joe Cooper, went on one of these missions to Honduras.  While there, they and the other volunteer providers fit 1700 patients over the span of 4 days.  Each day they had between 8 and 11 providers doing the fittings.  While many of the patients were children, plenty were adults as well.

The founder of the foundation, William F. Austin has a special message with regards to the children the foundation helps. “It’s important for us to help the children because they’re the future of the world – and if we neglect the children, we diminish our future. This is a very special thing we do for the children. It is something from which they’ll always remember us. Our reward is in the faces and smiles of each person as we help them hear again. This is the best work we could ever do because it’s helping people… and that’s what life is all about. We truly live through what we give – we live on into the future through our gifts back into our community and to humanity.”

Below are a couple of videos about the trip:

About the Mission:  (This link may take a little time to stream, but is worth the wait.)

2011HondurasAudigyVideoEd6.mp4

About the Provider Experience:

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Here is a little video of the action:

Jacquie Elcox with Integrity Counts! Award

The Better Business Bureau has an annual award the call Integrity Counts! It is an award given to businesses the exhibit the best examples of Integrity in their business practices.  We applied for this award in 2003 and were finalists and wanted to try again for 2012.  We tried and were selected as finalists again the second time around and were honored at an award ceremony on September 29th this year.  There were 65 businesses that were nominated in 2011.  Out of those, 26 businesses were honored.

If you are wondering what goes into applying and receiving such an award, let me explain.  We had to create an informational binder for each committee member that detailed out:

1. Company Philosophy – explaining why we chose integrity an important ingredient in our company structure and behavior.
2. Integrity in Action – short narratives were provided identifying how principal management and staff acted with integrity in at least two of the following situations:  Customer/User relationship, Vendor/Supplier relationship, Employee relationship, Community partnership.
3. Testimonials – we submitted testimonial letters from each of the groups above reflecting our relationship between our company and these groups.
4. External Communication – specific examples of how our company communicates its core values to employees, vendors & suppliers.

Without our great customers, we would have never achieved this award.  We thank all of you who have thanked us over the years and continue to do so.  We encourage all our customers to offer us feedback, both good and bad, about your relationship with us at any time.

Most people think of ”hearing” as something that happens in the ears, but in reality, the BRAIN interprets the signals from the ears and converts those signals into something the brain recognizes as speech.  So, in many respects, we really don’t fit the ears with hearing aids, we ultimately fit the brain.

Each one of our ears actually lateralizes to the opposite side of the brain and each serves a specific function.  For example the right ear, crossing to the left side of the brain, is mostly responsible for “technical” interpretation; differentiating the English language from Spanish for example.  The left ear, crossing to the right side of the brain handles more of the aesthetics of language such as deciding if someone is speaking sweetly or sarcastically for example!  Pretty important stuff!!!

Today’s sophisticated technology actually tries to mimic this process by “talking to each other”, constantly adjusting to the environment around you.  If you have a sound directed at you from one side, for instance, the devices will automatically make some changes by turning one side up and possibly the other side down.  This all happens automatically without you doing anything!

Studies indicate that people who wear two hearing devices usually have a better experience with hearing in noisy environments because the sounds are being shared by both ears and both sides of the brain.

Other important benefits include:

• Better directionality (locating where sounds are coming from)
• Better sound quality
• Keeps both ears active
• Better clarity
• You can have your hearing devices at a lower volume when you wear two
• Balanced hearing from both sides