Hearing Aids - Blog Posts

The Dangers of Hearing Loss Procrastination! I've done a little research on hearing loss procrastination and thought I would share it with you.Procrastination can be the "silent thief" and here's why: Untreated hearing loss can permanently damage your ability to understand words. Hearing Loss has been Linked to Dementia...see http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/media/releases/hearing_loss_and_dementia_linked_in_study Hearing loss is not something where you can recognize you have hearing loss--its not like you can see it for feel it. It get progressively worse without you even knowing it. Then, when you do discover you have hearing loss, your ideas about hearing loss (like they make you look...

That was a good question....I heard it over and over again from a number of my customers so I had to see for myself. I paid for a Consumer Reports membership online and here is what I learned, "Our research indicates that rating hearing-aid brands and models on overall performance is not possible because people with seemingly identical hearing loss may hear differently using a particular product programmed the same way." This is what I learned also. I have seen cases where there were two customers with almost identical audiograms. They both ordered the same Open Fit Hearing Aid. It...

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/20/technology/personaltech/soundhawk-smart-listening-system-a-hearing-helper.html?_r=0 MILLIONS of Americans have some degree of hearing difficulty, but only a small percentage regularly wear hearing aids. People in the hearing sciences have long argued that technology is partly to blame.Hearing aids are expensive — they often sell for more than a thousand dollars per ear, and they are not usually covered by health insurance. Also, unlike eyeglasses, hearing aids have never been fashionable. Although some manufacturers are trying to change how hearing aids are perceived, they still carry a stigma of aging and infirmity, and many who have difficulty hearing would rather suffer than be seen with...

Marion Downs—a legendary figure in audiology who is generally regarded as the “Mother of Pediatric Audiology”—has passed away at age 100. Downs is widely credited for helping establish the first infant hearing screening program in the United States, the forerunner of the current universal newborn hearing screening (UNHS) program responsible for checking the hearing of some 4 million US newborns each year. She was an adamant proponent of UNHS and fierce advocate for pediatric hearing care in general.Downs began her audiology career in 1959 at the University of Colorado School of Medicine clinic and, with Doreen Pollack, started fitting hearing...

Inside the Holt/Géléoc Lab Gene therapy strategies lend hope to hearing loss treatmentStory by Suzanne Day. Photo by Garyfallia Pagonis.From the Fall 2014 issue of Harvard Otolaryngology magazine. For inquiries or to be added to our mailing list, please contact Suzanne_Day@meei.harvard.edu.When Jeffrey Holt, Ph.D., and his wife Gwenaelle Géléoc, Ph.D., were offered faculty positions in the Harvard Medical School Department of Otolaryngology four years ago, they made the difficult decision to move their research efforts—and their lives together—from Charlottesville, Va., to Boston.At the time, they were excited about a possible hearing research breakthrough, in which they believed they had found...

Emergency responders comfort a woman on a stretcher who was injured in the Boston Marathon bombing on April 15, 2013. (Jeremy Pavia/AP)After two bombs exploded at the Boston Marathon in April of last year, the initial focus was on the lives and the multiple limbs lost in the attack. But ear damage was the most common physical injury. A new report finds that many victims are still suffering from hearing loss and ear damage related to the blasts.A team of Boston researchers report on the lingering impact of those ear and hearing problems in a new study published in the...

Approximately 40 to 50 percent of people 75 and older have a hearing loss. Trying to understand conversation can be frustrating and exhausting for these seniors. Here’s 10 tips to help you improve communication with a senior who has a hearing loss.1. Don’t shout - Shouting makes speech more difficult to understand for a senior with a hearing loss. Speak clearly (avoid mumbling your words) and talk at a moderate speed.2. Reduce background noise - Turn off the radio and TV and close the windows if there is loud noise outside. When in restaurants or at social gatherings, select seats...

http://knowyournoise.nal.gov.au/

Is it possible that hearing loss in one infant from a pair of twins can affect the mother’s speech to both infants? A new acoustics study zeroes in on this question and suggests that not only is this alteration of speech entirely possible, but that mothers speak to both infants as if they are hearing impaired.The study explores the acoustic characteristics of three mothers’ speech towards their infant twins. The results will be presented by Maria V. Kondaurova, a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Otolaryngology at Indiana University’s School of Medicine at the 168th Meeting of the Acoustical Society...

It's a classic situation ... a family is watching TV, but in order for the grandparents to be able to hear it, the volume is turned up too loud for everyone else's liking. A PhD student from the University of Southampton, however, might have a solution. Marcos Simón has developed a speaker system that projects high-volume audio to just one spot in the room.Simón's system is designed to compensate for the hearing loss typically experienced by 70 year-old individuals.It consists of an array of eight acoustical radiators (loudspeakers, essentially) arranged in a line, which work together to focus a "hot...

Can Nanotechnology Bring The ‘Cool Factor’ To Hearing Aids?Read more at http://www.redorbit.com/news/technology/1113276948/nanotechnology-hearing-aid-nanoplug-indiegogo-111114/#L9EUZSUh4doazRSQ.99

By Aaron Kirchfeld, Alex Webb and Adam Ewing Nov 5, 2014 4:01 PM MT 2014MarMayJulSepNov85.0090.0095.00100.00* Price chart for SIEMENS AG-REG. Click flags for important stories. SIE:GR88.22Siemens AG (SIE)’s supervisory board approved the sale of the company’s hearing-aids business to Swedish buyout firm EQT Partners AB and will announce the sale today, according to people familiar with the matter. EQT will pay about 2.1 billion euros ($2.6 billion) for the asset, said the people, who asked not to be named because the matter isn’t public yet.Siemens, Europe’s largest engineering company, had been planning to sell shares in the hearing-aids division on...