Corvallis Hearing Center

Audiology Clinic and Hearing Aids

Call 541-754-1377

Passionate for people and community!

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The heart of Corvallis Hearing Center and the passion and purpose of Dr. Ron Leavitt is to serve the people of our community.

One of the ways we strive for this is being a part of Oregon Association for Better Hearing and offering once a month educational seminars at Good Samaritan Regional Medical Center here in Corvallis. Our hope and desire for these meetings is to arm the community with knowledge and power on hearing health and hearing options. [Read more…]

Journey of Sound from the Ear to Brain

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Typically it is thought that we hear with our ears. We actually hear with our brain. The ear is just the path it takes to the brain.

Our brain and our ears work together as a team. The ear collects the sound waves and the brain processes those sound waves/electrical signals into speech or into something we can identify around us. [Read more…]

How the Aging Brain Affects Speech Understanding in Noisy Places

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In recent years the focus on hearing health care has shifted from the ears to the brain. One needs to only Google hearing loss and cognition to find dozens of articles in medical and hearing health care journals in the past few years. [Read more…]

Divergent Views in Hearing Health Care

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In August of 2017 the face of hearing health care changed with the passage of the Over-the-Counter Hearing Aid Law, allowing consumers to self-diagnose and self-treat their hearing loss.

The events leading up to this change were spearheaded by two distinct groups. One group was from Johns Hopkins Medical University; the other from Indiana University. [Read more…]

Can Hearing Aids Unscramble the Brain?

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A recent publication from Dr. Anu Sharma and colleagues at University Colorado, Boulder showed people who achieve a normal score with their hearing aids on a difficult speech in noise test were spared the brain resource reallocation reported for her subjects who have untreated or poorly treated hearing loss, perhaps explaining the strong relationship between hearing loss and dementia as noted by Dr. Frank Lin and colleagues at Johns Hopkins. [Read more…]

The Impact of Untreated Hearing Loss

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“Hearing loss is not a harmless condition to be ignored or left untreated. It has tremendous impact on your life, and if left untreated, it can have serious emotional, (cognitive) and social consequences.” (Dr. Serge Kochkin, 2005).

Many people are aware Corvallis has a consumer education group for people who are hard of hearing.  This group has met monthly since September 1988 and brings the latest scientific information to the community regarding hearing loss and hearing aids. Meetings are free to the public and take place on the second Thursday of each month from 3:30 to 5 p.m. at Corvallis Good Samaritan Hospital. [Read more…]

Debate on Medicare &Hearing Healthcare

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Several sources estimate Medicare will be insolvent by 2028. This dire prediction has produced numerous suggestions regarding how to cut medical costs and maintain Medicare.

In the area of hearing healthcare this charge for Medicare cost efficiency is led by otolaryngologist Frank Lin of Johns Hopkins Medical University.

Dr. Lin has suggested hearing healthcare could be more affordable by first removing all medical oversight for adults with mild-to-moderate hearing loss allowing them to self-diagnose and self-treat their hearing losses. [Read more…]

Hearing Loss & Aging: New Perspective

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It has been widely accepted that as people age the hearing nerve cells degrade. Further this hearing nerve cell degradation was thought to be well estimated from the conventional hearing test procedure known as the pure-tone audiogram.

This age-related hearing loss was thought to be so predictable that the International Standards Organization developed a graph showing the average amount of hearing loss for each decade of life using the conventional pure tone hearing test. [Read more…]

Hearing Loss & Health

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Many view hearing loss as an inconsequential condition that can be ignored without serious implication. Why else would Medicare deny benefits for hearing loss evaluation and rehabilitation to those over 65? Why would people delay seeking hearing help for years? Scientific evidence no long supports this laissez-faire attitude. [Read more…]