Functional Audiology

The functional model of care offers a patient-centered approach to health concerns. Functional health providers spend time listening to you and gathering all aspects of your health history including medical, emotional, social, and environmental influences. This information is utilized to aid in analyzing the root cause(s) of injuries/illness, including triggers such as poor nutrition, stress, toxins, allergens, genetics and your microbiome (the bacteria living in and on your body). Once triggers or weaker areas of the system are understood, a healthy lifestyle plan can be optimized. Functional health addresses many aspects of your life, from physical needs, including nutrition, toxic chemicals, exercise and sleep, to mental and emotional stressors related to social, work and community life.

Dr. Vowell offers traditional hearing care as well as Functional Hearing care. Functional audiologic exams are much lengthier and involve all the foundational systems of health.  For some individuals, improving lifestyle choices will have positive impacts on their communication abilities. Foundational health issues can have negative impacts on brain processing which can in turn impact hearing and communication skills. Foundational health issues that cause the body emotional and physical stress can have negative impacts on communication as the body is only able to handle so many issues at one time. Understanding how all the health foundations impact each other and how to improve those areas can lead to healthier lifestyle choices and improved communication abilities. Functional hearing care involves the audiology clinic in addition to the wellness clinic and certified wellness coaching.  Bioscanning, pH testing, and toxic load assessment are all part of functional hearing care.

Dr. Vowell also offers Functional Tinnitus assessment. Many tinnitus patients are told they just “have to live with it” and while there is no cure for tinnitus that is not related to a disease state such as middle ear/retro cochlear/blockages, etc. there are other ways to help minimize the awareness and annoyance that it creates.  Functional Tinnitus assessment provides an in depth look at how tinnitus is being impacted by the various foundations of health and strategies to aid in minimizing those impacts. Emotional and environmental stressors are often factors that must be considered. Bioscanning, pH testing, toxic load assessment, Bach flowers, and Magnesphere are all utilized in this session.

Functional Audiology and Tinnitus sessions are private pay only as functional health care is not recognized in the mainstream medical system and traditionally misunderstood in its concepts and methodology as the body system as a whole unit. For more information including assessment fees, please contact our office via text at (918) 406-4514 or phone at (918) 779-7500.