Around 15% of American adults—36 million people—have mild to moderate hearing loss. And that is not limited to older adults. With hearing aids allowed to be sold over the counter, Apple has designed its AirPods Pro 2 headphones to screen for hearing loss and function as hearing aids.
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Auglaize and Sidney Audiology will now offer cognitive screening along with regular hearing exams to look for a cognitive decline in patients. They are encouraging all patients over the age of 55 to take the screening. According to the owner of Auglaize and Sidney Audiology, Vanessa Lee, this test could detect signs of dementia sooner than others.
While it seems like mask-wearing is becoming more widespread in the area, it is impacting some people's way of communicating. That’s why “communicator masks” are now being made. A person with hearing impairment can get up to 30% of their speech understanding through lip-reading, so when everyone started wearing masks because of the pandemic, it became an issue of communication for them.