Hearing Aids - Blog Posts

Comparing Traditional and Direct Mail Hearing Aids May 12, 2014 In the News Kochkin (2014) reports on the largest and most objective analysis of hearing aids obtained via traditional methods, as compared to mail order (including Internet) protocols. The mail order data base was comprised of more than 2,300 responses.In general, the mail order customer is male, has a high school education (or less), is 75 years old or older, retired, and has a household income of $26,000 or less. Some 43 percent of mail order customers are first-time users (FTUs) as compared to 47 percent for traditional methods. Of...

For most, the noisy sounds of the classroom are a distant memory: students chatting and laughing, loud announcements, and the shrill ring of the lunch bell. These sounds are an everyday reality for teachers, however, and their hearing is suffering from the cumulative noise exposure of years spent in the classroom.A comprehensive US survey recently found that while hearing loss is on the rise among adults in general, teachers are at a higher risk for hearing loss than the average worker. Specifically, research found that 15% of US teachers have a diagnosed hearing problem, versus 12% of employees overall, and...

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- More than 190 Buffalo firefighters have joined thousands of firefighters across the country in suing siren makers over damage to their hearing. Buffalo Fire Department About 20 lawsuits filed in state court were moved to federal court in Buffalo a week ago. In the lawsuits, 193 individuals follow in the footsteps of employees of fire departments in at least five other states who have sued siren makers. The firefighters since 1999 have claimed hearing loss from repeated exposure to sirens in Illinois, Pennsylvania, Missouri, New Jersey, Maryland and New York.Each plaintiff alleges that he was "seriously injured"...

Common childhood infections, such as tonsillitis and ear infections, may lead to hearing loss later in life, according to recent research from charity Action on Hearing Loss and Newcastle University as part of the ongoing 1947 Newcastle Thousand Families Study.The Newcastle Thousand Families Study monitored 1142 Newcastle-born babies from 1947 to the present day, measuring their health, growth and development. Now in their sixties a quarter of them have had their hearing tested.Dr Mark Pearce, who led the study at the Institute of Health and Society at Newcastle University, said: ‘Our findings show that those who suffered from infections as...

GAITHERSBURG, Md., Nov. 5, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- GenVec, Inc. (GNVC) today announced that the company has achieved a milestone in its collaboration with Novartis for the development of treatments for hearing and balance disorders. Novartis has dosed the first patient in a clinical study to assess the safety, tolerability, and efficacy of intra-labyrinthine (IL) CGF166 in patients with severe hearing loss. Under the terms of the collaboration agreement this triggers a $3 million milestone payment to GenVec."We are very excited about the initiation of this clinical trial," said Douglas E. Brough, Ph.D., GenVec's Chief Scientific Officer. "At every step of...

By Dr. Nick Campos On May 24, 2010 · Add Comment · In Body Hey! Listen up! Viagra could cause long-term hearing loss. Wha…huh? You heard me, earplugs—taking erectile dysfunction drugs can deafen you. Oh…According to a recent study out of the University of Alabama, Birmingham, there may be an association between the onset of hearing problems and the use of phosphodiesterase type 5 inhibitors (PDE-5i), which includes Viagra, Levitra and Cialis. This has been known since 2007 when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued labeling adjustments for these medications to more prominently display warnings about hearing loss risks....

Common childhood illnesses such as tonsillitis and ear infections can cause hearing loss later in life, according to results from a famous study.The Newcastle Thousand Families Study monitored 1,142 Newcastle-born babies from 1947 to the present day, measuring their health, growth and development.A quarter of the participants, who are now in their 60s, have had their hearing tested and the results show those who had infections as children were more likely to have hearing loss.Dr Mark Pearce, who led the study at the Institute of Health and Society at Newcastle University, said: 'Our findings show that those who suffered from...

The type of sound processing that modern hearings aids provide to make speech more understandable for wearers may also make music enjoyment more difficult, according to a new study by the University of Colorado Boulder.The findings, published in the journal Ear and Hearing, suggest that less sophisticated hearing aids might actually be more compatible with listening to music, especially recorded music that has itself been processed to change the way it sounds.“Hearing aids have gotten very advanced at processing sounds to make speech more understandable,” said Naomi Croghan, who led the study as a doctoral student at CU-Boulder and who...

Hearing devices visible on Prince Philip as he accompanies Queen at reception to honour recipients of Victoria Cross and George Cross at Buckingham Palace The Duke of Edinburgh's hearing aid is only visible because of a thin wire next to each ear Photo: PA By Edward Malnick 1:38PM GMT 28 Oct 2014 Presented with a pair of ear defenders for his ninetieth birthday the Duke of Edinburgh joked: “Can you get Radio 3 on this?’’ One can only imagine, then, the scene when Prince Philip, now 93, was fitted with the pair of hearing aids that he wore for the...

Researchers from the University of Michigan and Harvard Medical School in Boston, MA, may be well on the way to finding new therapies that restore noise-induced and age-related hearing loss in humans. In a new study, the team describes how they recovered hearing in mice partially deafened by noise. The researchers found that a protein called NT3 is important for establishing ribbon synapses (red) - connections between the inner ear's hair cells (blue) and nerve cells (green).Image credit: Corfas laboratory - University of Michigan The researchers, led by Gabriel Corfas, PhD, of the University of Michigan, publish their findings online...

About The Author Jeff Carroll, Ph.D. the Director of Clinical Services and Engineering for SoundCure. He was the founding Director of the Tinnitus Treatment Center at the University of California, Irvine, and has worked with hundreds of tinnitus patients over the past decade. He has given numerous presentations to people with tinnitus, has written numerous articles and has been a guest on talk radio. Dr. Carroll is one of the inventors of the S-Tone technology in the SoundCure sound therapy system. For more information visit SoundCure.com

Alex Selig was in preschool in Mill Valley when his teacher put him in tears reading him the riot act. She thought he was purposely misconstruing the message in a game of telephone, in which children in the class were instructed to pass a message one to the other with whispers in the ear.As it turned out, Selig had major hearing loss, possibly as a result of infections when he was younger.Over the coming years, Selig, who wears hearing aids in both ears, spent a lot of time with audiologists, and he developed a fascination with audio physics and technology.That...