Surrey Guildford
Hearing Clinic

A no-obligation hearing screening is free at any one of our clinics. This assessment includes the 3-point series of tests that includes measuring air conduction, word discrimination, and checking the eardrum and middle ear system. More comprehensive exams that require reporting such as physician reports, employment requirements or children’s hearing test are exempt from the free hearing test offer, check with your local clinic for rates.

• Store batteries at normal room temperature.
• Wash your hands before changing batteries to keep oil and dirt from causing damage to the battery or clogging up the air pores.
• Leave the battery compartment in your hearing aid open at night to let moisture escape.
• Use a hearing aid storage container or dehumidifier.
• Check the expiration date on the package before you purchase new batteries. Try and purchase batteries with an expiry date that is a year in the future or further.
• Do not remove the protective seal on the battery until you’re ready to use it. Once the seal is removed, the battery begins to lose charge.
• Use rechargeable batteries. Our clinic staff would be happy to help you find a rechargeable option for your device.

• Voices sounding muffled or unclear
• Not being able to tell where a sound is coming from (known as localization)
• Needing higher volume settings on televisions, stereos and headphones
• Trouble differentiating between foreground and background noise

• Sensoineural: The inner ear, hearing nerve, or hair cells within the cochlea become damaged. It can be a result of aging, exposure to loud noise, injury, disease, certain medications, or an inherited condition.
• Conductive: occurs in the outer or middle ear when sound waves become blocked by earwax or a foreign object in the ear canal. The middle ear canal could be impacted with fluid, infection, or a bone abnormality. Lastly, conductive hearing loss can be caused by an injury to the eardrum.
• Mixed: People can sometimes experience a combination of both sensorineural and conductive hearing loss.

An analog hearing aid is an older type of hearing aid that makes continuous sound waves louder. Speech and noise are amplified in the same way, so an analog hearing aid can be thought of as a device that turns the volume up on everything around you. They can be programmed for different listening environments that can be switched at the push of a button on the hearing aid.

More commonly found these days, a digital hearing aid will have all of the features that come in an analog device. Instead of amplifying all sound waves, a digital hearing aid will convert sound waves into digital signals, and then produce an exact duplication of the sound. The technology used in a digital hearing aid is more sophisticated and allows for more complex processing of sound. This gives them greater flexibility in programming to allow the sound they transmit to be matched to the specific type of hearing loss a patient is experiencing.

If you are unsure which type is right for you, contact our clinic and come see us to discuss your needs and options!