About Yorkton Hearing Services

Children can have their hearing tested right from birth. At our clinic we test age 5 and up.

Financing is available on select devices. We would be happy to help walk you through the application process.

We do not offer private insurance billing, however, we would be happy to provide you with a receipt that includes all the information needed for you to submit your claim.

Usually, individuals do not seek out their audiologist until a hearing problem is noticed. For example, his/her spouse complaining about the TV being too loud, or difficulty understanding speech in background noise. Although testing at that time is recommended, a baseline is also a recommended starting point so that change in hearing can be determined.

1. All babies should be screened at birth, but since Universal Newborn Hearing Screening (UNHS) has not been established in Saskatchewan, parents must seek this testing on their own.
2. All children entering kindergarten should have a hearing screening.
3. Anyone working in the presence of excessive noise (85 dBA) should have an annual threshold check.
4. An assessment around the age of 50 will help determine a progressive hearing loss in the future.
5. A sudden shift in hearing acuity requires a hearing test within 48 hours.

Additional testing may be recommended by your audiologist depending on case history and audiometric results. Once hearing loss or tinnitus is determined, an audiometric test every two years is recommended (sooner if any of the above is applicable).

We recommend your hearing be tested every 2 years unless any of the exceptions listed above apply.

To see an audiologist in private practice, you do not need a physician’s referral. There is a cost for an assessment in this setting, but the wait time is minimal. Some health plans will reimburse the assessment fee, but you must check with your plan to see if it is covered.

Ear wax (or cerumen) in moderate amounts is healthy. It serves as a protectant for your ears, just as eyelashes protect your eyes. A combination of ear hairs, outward migration of the skin in the canal, and jaw movement serve as a natural cleaner of the canal. The aging process often changes the shape of the canal to a slim oval which can also cause wax to build up. As well, hearing aids can block the wax from making its way out of the canal. Use of Q-tips can push the cerumen further into the canal where it can no longer come out on its own. Remember: never put anything smaller than your elbow into your ear canal! Use of mineral oil, olive oil, or even Colace may be used to soften cerumen before removal, but only if there is certainty that the eardrum is intact.

There are three methods a regulated health care professional will use to remove excessive ear wax:
1. Instrumentation: wax is removed using a curette;
2. Suction: wax is removed using a mini vacuum (safest and most preferred by clients);
3. Irrigation: flushing with water.

NOTE: Ear candling is not a recommended method for cerumen removal.

Our ears work together as a receiving station for the brain. One ear is directed to the left, and the other to the right. When the ears pick up a sound, the brain calculates the angle from which the sound came. We need both ears working to be able to localize where sounds come from. Secondly, the quality of sound greatly increases when it is heard by two ears, rather than one. So if you have hearing loss in both ears, and only have amplification in one, what you hear will be somewhat flat and missing the richness that could be found with two.

Hearing loss can make a person feel very isolated and lonely. Listening becomes difficult and getting together with family and friends can become very frustrating, as well as tiring. Here are some ways you can make communicating with someone with a hearing loss easier:

• Speak normally; not too exaggerated, too quickly or too loudly.
• Be sure you have eye contact before you begin speaking to the person.
• Use facial expressions, gestures and body language.
• Ensure the person is aware when the topic changes.
• Be aware of competing noises or sounds in the room such as music, other people talking, or mechanical sounds such as air conditioners. Background noises make it much more difficult to hear.
• Reword your sentence if the person does not understand what you are saying.
• Most importantly, ask if there is anything you can do to improve communication.

Sudden hearing loss occurs for various reasons and should always be dealt with immediately. In 9/10 cases, the loss is unilateral (only in one ear). Whether the change in hearing is due to wax build-up, a middle ear infection, or a sudden sensorineural decrease in hearing at multiple frequencies (inner ear), you should see your family physician or audiologist to determine the cause/type of the loss right away. It is always better to be safe than sorry. Many times, people assume it is nothing serious, only to wait too long to get medical attention and are unable to recover their hearing.

Sudden sensorineural hearing loss (SSHL) should be considered a medical emergency and be dealt with in the first 48 hours. The sooner you seek medical attention, the more likely you are to recover some or all of your hearing. Since there are more than 100 possible causes of SSHL, it is often unlikely that it will be identified. Possible treatments include antibiotics, low salt diet, and most commonly, steroids.

Audiologists are health care professionals in the areas of hearing and balance. Hearing aid practitioners (HAPs) share a portion of this scope of practice concerning hearing assessment and hearing aid fittings. The level of training between the professions varies with most HAPs having completed a two year correspondence course, while audiologists have completed an undergraduate degree and a master’s degree (at minimum) lasting 6-8 years. Audiologists work in a variety of work settings including private practice, public health, education systems, hospitals, universities, and hearing aid manufacturers. Another difference is the age range of clientele with audiologists being the only profession of the two to deal with the pediatric population (birth and up).

Audiologists are regulated in Saskatchewan through the Saskatchewan Association of Speech-Language Pathologists and Audiologists (SASLPA).

All too often, clients report a “dead” ear when, in actuality, that ear just has poorer hearing than the other one. Following a hearing test by an audiologist to diagnose the type and degree of hearing loss being suffered, amplification options can be discussed. In the event that one ear either has no hearing OR if it can hear environmental sounds, but cannot distinguish speech sounds adequately, there is now a cosmetically pleasing option to try. This is called a CROS (or biCROS) hearing aid which stands for “Contralateral Routing of Signals”. In other words, it takes the sound received on the side of the “bad ear”, and sends it over to the “good ear” where it is picked up by a receiving hearing aid that only amplifies the sound if needed for that ear. In the past, this was only possible with a cord running around the back of the neck, but technology has come a long way. It is now wireless and the devices are very discrete.