Contact Us

Your hearing
healthcare provider

What we do
Established in 1995, we proudly serve the greater East London community and Port Alfred, striving to provide the best possible and most cost effective solutions for hearing challenges.

The hearing aid practice is managed and facilitated by Ross Birtill who is armed with a Hearing Aid Acoustician qualification from Wits Technikon. Ross has in excess of 30 years’ experience and is extremely passionate about assisting his clients with hearing solutions. Committed to quality, we work exclusively with internationally reputed brands of hearing instruments, ensuring our clients receive trusted technology and care. As a registered Hearing Aid Acoustician with the Health Professions Council of South Africa and a member of the Society of Hearing Aid Acousticians, South Africa, we uphold the highest professional standards in every aspect of our service.

"Professional assistance and lots of advice. Really good to see someone who is respectful of aged patients."

Cheryl & Wally

Our Services

• Hearing Tests
• Tympanometry and Reflex Testing
• Industrial Screening Tests
• Supply and Fitting of all types of Hearing Aids
• Hearing Aid Verification & Speech Mapping
• Hearing Aid Repairs
• Hearing Aid Batteries and Accessories
• Hearing Protection Devices

Causes of
Hearing Loss

Sensori-neural hearing loss

Sensori-neural hearing loss is by far the most common hearing loss. The condition refers to problems in the cochlea or auditory nerve.  Most are due to the deterioration of the tiny hair cells that line the cochlea and transmit sound to the auditory nerve and then the brain.   This accounts for over 90 % permanent hearing loss.  Often it is a natural part of ageing, but other causes could be:

  1. Traumatic exposure to noise
  2. Genetic predispositions
  3. Viral infections of the inner ear
  4. Certain medical treatments such as chemotherapy, radiation therapy & antibiotics (aminoglycosides) etc
  5. Head injury

Sensori-neural hearing loss cannot be corrected medically, but a hearing instrument can almost always help.

Conductive hearing loss

This condition is caused by any obstruction that prevents sound waves from reaching the inner ear. Some of the causes of conductive hearing loss can include:

1. An accumulation of earwax
2. A build-up of fluid in the middle ear
3. Abnormal bone growth in the middle ear (otosclerosis)
4. Middle ear infections (otitis media)
5. Perforation of the eardrum
6. A conductive hearing loss may be corrected with surgery and/or hearing aids.

Mixed hearing loss

Hearing loss that includes both a conductive and a sensorineural hearing loss. This means there is damage to both the outer and inner ear. The outer ear cannot conduct sound properly to the inner ear, and the inner ear can’t process the sound to be sent to the brain.

Hearing Instruments

A hearing instrument is often more discreet than hearing loss

Long gone are the days when a hearing instrument was a large, obvious, embarrassing flesh-coloured prosthesis with bad performance. Just like computers and cellular telephones from a decade ago, hearing instruments are now available as much smaller devices and they perform in unthinkable ways compared to recent years. There are five basic types of hearing instruments: Behind the ear (BTE), In the ear (ITE), In the canal (ITC), Receiver in ear (RIE), and Completely in the canal (CIC).

What are the benefits of modern hearing instruments?

New hearing instruments offer a number of high-tech features that amongst other things provide better speech understanding in noisy environments by for example turning down the unwanted noise and turning up the speech. They are also programmed to compensate for your specific hearing needs.

What are the benefits of modern hearing instruments?

● Thanks to technology today, hearing aids integrate with cell phones. Users can stream sound directly from a cell phone.
● They can hear voices from phone calls, voice notes, listen to their favourite music, or follow the voice prompts of a GPS.
● All hearing aids have special apps to download on iPhones or most Android phones that allow users to control their hearing aids straight from their phones.
● Wireless accessories are available with different models of hearing aids to have remote TV links to aid hearing television

45

Hearing tests

Do you have doubts about the actual hearing test?

● It’s the easiest test you will ever take.
● A hearing test is quick, simple and painless.
● In most case the results are instant – you will know immediately if you have a hearing problem.
● After this hearing test you will know what steps to take to improve your hearing.
● There are a number of different testing methods – most start with a brief questionnaire about the health of your ear, general health and lifestyle.
● These questions determine the cause and nature of your possible hearing loss.

The Actual Hearing Test

A hearing test evaluates your hearing sensitivity and is generally performed using an audiometer, which determines sensitivity at different frequencies.

• You are placed in a sound booth with a set of headphones over your ears.
• Your headphones are connected to the audiometer. The audiometer is calibrated to measure you hearing with precision.
• The audiometer sends tones at various frequencies to one ear at a time, while the hearing professional plots the loudness (in decibels) on an audiogram.
• The test will produce results in the form of a graph. The result is referred to as your threshold.
• Your evaluation may include other subtests such as speech audiometry.
• Your hearing care professional will play pre-recorded lists of words at various levels that you will need to repeat.

  • info@hearingsolutions.co.za
  • 043 748 5121
  • 66 Bonza Bay Road, East London