Can piano keys explain hearing loss…..? By Richard Reikowski, Au.D Family Hearing and Balance Center

I had the opportunity to hear our staff Audiologist Dr. Amy Welman, Au.D explain a persons high frequency hearing loss with a great analogy! The patient commented that they felt their hearing was overall fine and unsure how their hearing loss caused an affect on sounds or speech around him. Dr. Amy shared that if you can imagine the keys on a piano and not having the upper frequency keys available to play, those are the sounds that you are missing. Think of removing the high tones and the song won’t sound crisp and clear, but more deep sounding.

I really liked this analogy, as it conveys in simple and understandable terms how our hearing loss changes what we hear. In this man’s case, his hearing loss gradually declined over several years and he was unknowing how the missing sounds affected him. We can easily show a patient how those missing sounds correlate to speech, music, and the clarity of conversations through demonstrations of digital hearing aid technology.