Prevention is better than cure when it comes to hearing loss.

Hearing loss results from regular exposure to sounds of about 85 decibels (dB), which include hair dryers!

It is estimated that 15 percent of Americans between the ages of 20 and 69 have some degree of hearing loss from exposure to excessive noise at work, or the community.

“Most people experience some degree of hearing loss as they age, but exposure to significant levels of noise over time can accelerate that process,” explains Caryn Graboski, MS, CCC-SLP, of the Kessler Institute for Rehabilitation in West Orange, New Jersey.

“We know that NIHL results from regular exposure to intense sounds of about 85 decibels (dB), which include lawn mowers, power tools, motorcycles, and even hair dryers.

“And while hearing loss cannot be reversed, steps can be taken to protect your ears and minimize damage.”

Studies show that hearing loss impacts the ability to communicate and can have a profound effect on people’s lives.

Such loss can impact personal and professional relationships, as well as academic achievement and career advancement.

To help minimize the effects of Noise Induced Hearing Loss, Kessler Institute offers these tips:

• Understand the types of noises that can cause damage, particularly those above 85 dB.
• Avoid situations where noises are too loud, too long, or too close.
• Wear protective earplugs when attending sporting events or music concerts, or when using certain machinery or equipment such as lawn mowers, motorcycles, machinery, and leaf blowers.
• If necessary, use specially designed earmuffs or earphones in the workplace.
• Be alert for hazardous noises in the environment. If necessary, plug your ears with your fingers.
• Take a “quiet” break, particularly when in noisy or loud places.
• Lower the volume of iPods, MP3 players, radios, TVs, or other electronic devices. You should still be able to hear people or street noise above the music.
• When purchasing headphones or ear buds, look for models with volume limiters and noise cancellation features.

“Symptoms of NIHL can increase gradually over time, so it’s important to be aware of any changes in your ability to hear things clearly,” said Monica Bucenec, MS, CCC-SLP, of the Kessler Saddle Brook, New Jersey, campus.

You may have a hearing loss if you:

• Ask people to repeat themselves or misunderstand what people are saying.
• Understand people better when you look directly at their face.
• Have trouble hearing when on the phone in a noisy room.
• Experience ringing in your ears.
• Keep the radio and TV at a volume level that others think is too loud.

If hearing loss is suspected, it is recommended that you have a medical examination and see an otolaryngologist or audiologist for a hearing test.

Sensory service’s work helped people to feel “less isolated”

Mr Matheson said the sensory service's work helped people to feel "less isolated"

Public Health Minister Michael Matheson has been in the Borders to study the work being done to support people with hearing and sight loss in the region.

The Borders Local Integrated Sensory Service (BLISS) is run by RNIB Scotland and Action on Hearing Loss Scotland.

Mr Matheson said the project offered “practical support and advice” to people across south east Scotland.

He also praised the work being done to help them “feel less isolated and more part of their community”.

“The role played by volunteers has really helped to make this joint sensory project the success that it is,” he said.

“BLISS is a great example of how volunteers can gain new skills and give something back to the community that helps to improve the lives of those around them.”

Action on Hearing Loss Scotland director Delia Henry said working with the RNIB and other partners had seen the scheme flourish.

She said: “The joint sensory project offers the practical support that means that hearing aid users are able to communicate better with family and friends and so overcome the sense of isolation faced by so many people with hearing loss.”

RNIB Scotland director John Legg said it had been a “great opportunity” to extend “integrated services at grassroots level across the Scottish Borders”.

“We are helping people come to terms with losing their sight and going on to lead fulfilling lives,” he said.

“We are also keen to support those with learning disabilities and other complex needs whose sight loss might have gone undiagnosed.

“We hope this joint sensory service project exemplifies efficiency and localism – and we very much welcome the new emphasis on prevention.”

For any information on Hearing Loss contact Hidden Hearing

Source BBC.co.uk

A few ideas to help combat hearing loss

It is an “invisible injury” but no less painful. Besides the loss of one of our five senses, hearing loss also implies serious difficulties for us to interact and understand others.

This condition in our listening skills increases with age and can become irreversible. But with the noise pollution today, young people are at high risk: high music to expose their ears is one reason why your hearing is increasingly damaged.

To protect the health of your ears, heed the following advice.

Avoid loud noises. Whenever you can, tries to get away from them. Close your car windows when driving, do not stand next to the speakers at a concert or in clubs and out for lunch in those restaurants where you can converse without raising your voice.

Limit your exposure. If it is unavoidable to be around loud noises, try to limit the amount of time your ears are exposed to them. The higher the decibels of sound, the less time we should be exposed to it so that our hearing is not damaged.

To give you an idea: a normal conversation is 55 to 65 decibels, the noise of traffic from 70 to 85, live music clubs and restaurants from 90 to 110 and an ambulance siren 120.

Protect yourself. From noise above 85 decibels, it is recommended that the ears are protected. We are talking, for example, when you are exposed to constant noise of a lawnmower, use of drills and power tools.

Control the volume when listening to music or watching television. Blaring headphones are harmful to our hearing just as much as the stereo or TV at high volumes. In these cases, the ideal is to choose the volume level that it was maintaining a normal conversation (without raising his voice) with someone three feet away.

Rest your ears. Just as a wound needs to heal, our ears need a break if they have been exposed to loud sounds. Therefore, the next day at a rock concert, do not expose yourself where you know there will be much noise. If your routine involves constant exposure to high volumes, seeks to take a few minutes of silence.

See a doctor and get checkups. It is important to keep your hearing under the supervision of experts. If you notice that you no longer hear as before, consult your doctor.

If you have any questions about learing loss contact Hidden Hearing

In The USAHearing Loss is on the rise

“Once upon a time we used to think that the most common hearing problem was the hearing problem associated to aging” said Dr. Carole Martin, an audiologist at The Hearing Center in Cheyenne.  However, of the 30 million Americans suffering from hearing loss, over half are under the age of 65.

Martin says the problem is largely due to exposure to excessive noise from things like ipods and vacuum cleaners. “There are lots of things in our everyday life that, if we continue to use them for long periods of time, are going to cause hearing loss” said Martin.

Hearing loss is irreversible and develops gradually but the process can be slowed and even prevented. “I really do try to encourage everybody to get a baseline audiogram by the age of 45″ said Martin.”

For those already suffering from hearing loss, she said there are a number of hearing device options to choose from. However, from cochlear implants to F.M. devices, they’re far from traditional hearing aids.

 

If you have any questions about hearing loss please contact Hidden Hearing.

I am pregnant – what should I eat?

Staying Healthy

By Dr Nina Byrnes

In association with Hidden Hearing

 

Dr. Nina Byrnes introduces a series of articles by various writers on medical topics this one is by Edel Rooney.

 

I have just found out I am pregnant. I am around eight weeks along at the moment and because this is my first pregnancy, I’m not sure what to expect. I’ve heard so much about women craving strange foods but I want to make sure my diet is as healthy as possible for me and my baby. Any tips? Also, is it best to cut out alcohol completely?

 

Georgie

 

 

 

Congratulations. To ensure you and your baby have the nutrients and energy to get through this exciting but demanding time, it’s vital you enjoy a healthy and varied diet.

 

Firstly, there is a new tool at feedingforlife.ie, which gives you a neat insight into the types of food you should be eating at each stage of your pregnancy. In fact, if you pop in a typical meal plan for your day, the tool will tell you whether you are eating healthily or not, based on your due date and your dietary requirements.

 

During the first twelve weeks of your pregnancy, it’s important to take on lots of folic acid – you should take 400g per day at this stage.

 

To guard against anaemia, you should eat iron-rich foods like red meat, eggs, fish and chicken. Oily fish are also an excellent source of Omega 3 and 6 fats, which help your baby’s brain development. Make sure your meat and fish is fully and carefully cooked. Partially raw food can contain bacteria and viruses that may harm you or your baby.

 

Low-fat dairy products will provide the calcium you need for your baby’s bones. However, avoid unpasteurised dairy products, which may contain the bacteria listeria – this can be harmful to your baby.

 

You should drink plenty of water during your pregnancy – this will guard against dehydration and help with heartburn, morning sickness and constipation. Aim for around eight glasses per day. Avoid taking on too much carbonated fluids. Water, milk and unsweetened juices should be your beverages of choice.

 

High-fibre and wholegrain breads, rice and cereals will also help you avoid constipation. As always, you should aim to eat the recommended five-a-day of fruit and vegetables.

 

There are also certain food groups you should cut down or cut out altogether during pregnancy.

 

Drinking during pregnancy

 

Alcohol is best avoided completely. The HSE Health Promotion Unit advises that there is no known safe level of alcohol use during pregnancy.

 

Alcohol consumption can lead to disorders in how the brain develops in the womb as the placenta does not act as a barrier to alcohol. Damage can occur particularly in the first three months of pregnancy, and also from the seventh month of pregnancy on when the brain experiences a growth spurt.

 

The HPU also makes the point that taking more than three drinks per day increases the risk of miscarriage, while taking more than 12 drinks in a week increases the risk of premature birth.

 

Foods to avoid

 

You should also avoid foods containing high amounts of Vitamin A, such as liver and pâté or foods with lots of mercury, like swordfish, marlin or shark. These can harm your baby’s nervous system.

 

You should limit your intake of caffeine to no more than four cups per day – this includes coffee, caffeinated drinks and other sources of caffeine. Peppermint and ginger teas are a good alternative. If making herbal tea, use tea bags, don’t have more than two cups per day and do not make your tea too strong.

 

As during any stage of life, it’s wise to limit the intake of processed and preserved foods, as they usually contain high levels of salt. Crisps and confectionary may offer some sweet relief during pregnancy, but you should limit foods that offer extra calories but little nutrition.

 

Now might also be a good time to have yourself checked for food allergies, particularly if you suspect you have a problem. If there is a family history of nut allergies, avoid peanut and peanut products as your baby may have inherited this problem.

Dr. Nina Byrnes is Medical Consultant with Hidden Hearing. You can book a hearing test free of charge at any of Hidden Hearing clinic. visit www.hiddenhearing.org.

The legal system is not geared to handle the need of deaf people.

Ten million people have a hearing problem but legal aid cuts will make woeful provision of legal services worse

It is easy to find stories about deaf people who have been let down by lawyers and the legal system.

There’s Funmi, a deaf Nigerian who has lived in the UK since 1987 but whose solicitor did not make her citizenship application correctly; David, a self-employed man whose solicitor did not fight his corner over benefits he was entitled to for being wholly reliant on his hearing mother to communicate with clients; and John, whose union solicitor did a bad job of his disability discrimination case against a well-known financial institution.

All of these people eventually turned to RAD Legal Services, part of the Royal Association for Deaf People and the country’s only dedicated legal resource for the deaf. Why are there not more, especially because – with nearly 10 million people suffering some sort of hearing problem – it is potentially a huge market to serve?

Its head, solicitor Rob Wilks, is not certain. “It could be because deafness is a ‘hidden’ disability,” he says. There are small signs of this changing. Blackburn law firm Joseph Frasier will next week launch a campaign to provide legal services for deaf people under the headline: “Representing your right to be heard.” Claiming to be the first private law firm dedicated to deaf and hard of hearing people, founder Saimina Virmani says it is the culmination of 18 months of preparation; the campaign was inspired by deaf staff working in the building where the firm is situated (which belongs to the East Lancashire Deaf Society) and by her experience of acting for a deaf client.

She has also come across “terrible” stories of solicitors denying deaf people access to interpreters and simply not understanding the different ways they need to communicate with deaf people, such as in the way they write letters.

The firm’s fee-earners, none of whom are deaf, are being taught British Sign Language (BSL) and it is adapting its communication channels. “The last few months have been a journey for us and we have loved learning about deaf culture,” Virmani says. “The deaf community is very tightly knit and although we see people who are deaf as being on the outside of our world, the tables have now completely turned and we are on the outside. As legal professionals we are trained to use the power of our advocacy and voice but in working with deaf/hard of hearing clients, this has essentially been taken away from us.”

The legal system, it appears, is simply not geared to the needs of deaf people – Rob Wilks says deaf people who use BSL as a first language often have poor literacy levels (the average reading age for deaf school leavers is 8-9 years). “This means that they cannot understand information leaflets and correspondence, or access telephone helplines using a textphone,” he says.

A report in 2009 by the Equality and Human Rights Commission found that the advice system of CABs, law societies, union sources and private firms of solicitors “are often still inaccessible to profoundly deaf customers” though the Disability Discrimination Act has been on the statute books since 1995. Now the Equality Act 2010, it requires service providers to make adjustments to ensure that a disabled person can use a service as close as it is reasonably possible to the standard usually offered to non-disabled people.

This is not happening across the legal system, both in most law firms and in the courts. Part of the problem, Wilks says, is the “chronic shortage” of interpreters, but it is just plain neglect as well.

One of Virmani’s projects has been to build a network of law firms (now numbering nearly 50) around the country that have committed to become deaf-aware and will be able to help deaf people in their area if face-to-face help is required.

The association began an advice service in 2000, transforming into RAD Legal Services in July 2007, when Wilks, who has been deaf since birth, qualified as a solicitor and the £500,000 Big Lottery Fund deaf minority advice project commenced.

Over the past four years, RAD has handled nearly 1,500 cases, with employment, welfare benefits, discrimination and housing the most in-demand areas of law. It has a contract (until March 2012) from the Equality and Human Rights Commission to provide discrimination advice to deaf and hard of hearing people throughout England, Wales and Scotland. Plans for the first deaf law centre are also well underway.

And there is further hope that the legal needs of deaf people will be understood. The legal services consumer panel has confirmed that the first of a series of studies into how specific groups of consumers (particularly disadvantaged ones) experience legal services will be in partnership with Action on Hearing Loss (formerly RNID).

Emma Harrison, a member of the panel and head of public engagement at Action on Hearing Loss, says the study has come out of work the charity has been doing to improve access to the courts and hopes to highlight the pockets of best practice that exist in the legal profession.

But the prospect of the legal aid cuts could worsen the situation for the deaf community, Wilks says. Aside from simply not being able to afford legal advice, law firms or other legal advice providers that have legal aid franchises will no longer be able to rely on legal aid to claim the costs of interpreters as a disbursement. “This means the number of providers willing to provide legal advice to deaf people is likely to decline.”

Given the low base from which this is starting, it is a woeful prospect.

If you have any questions about hearing loss contact Hidden Hearing

Neil Rose is the editor of http://www.legalfutures.co.uk and writes for the guardian.co.uk

How much of a threat is an ailing senior to Airline Security?

This article from the Calgary Herald makes a very good point.

Ailing senior presented no threat to airline security.

By Hilary Argento, Calgary Herald

Wednesday morning, I took my parents to the airport. I watched them go through security so I could wave goodbye.

My dad will be 81 next week, has hearing aids in both ears, braces on both ankles and walks with a cane. I watched with growing anger as security made him walk through the scanner without his cane and then made him stand with his arms out as they wanded him and patted him down for three minutes.

He has trouble with his balance since the nerves in his feet have deteriorated and he cannot stand upright unassisted. He has had a knee replacement which sets off the scanner, but I am not sure how much of a threat my elderly dad would constitute on a plane. The most damage he could cause is if he lost his balance and fell on a flight attendant.

It is time that common sense was brought into our security measures. No one is safer on a plane because some seniors have been thoroughly searched and made to stumble through the scanner without their canes.

The time and effort it took the security person to search my dad could have been used to better effect elsewhere.

Hilary Argento, Calgary

Read more: http://www.calgaryherald.com

Dyslexia: Is it also A Hearing Problem?

Dyslexia May Also Be A Hearing Problem

Yesterday in the New York Times Tara Parker -Pope reported on some new research.

Many people consider dyslexia simply a reading problem in which children mix up letters and misconstrue written words. But increasingly scientists have come to believe that the reading difficulties of dyslexia are part of a larger puzzle: a problem with how the brain processes speech and puts together words from smaller units of sound.

Now, a study published last week in the journal Science suggests that how dyslexics hear language may be more important than previously realized. Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have found that people with dyslexia have more trouble recognizing voices than those without dyslexia.

John Gabrieli, a professor of cognitive neuroscience, and Tyler Perrachione, a graduate student, asked people with and without dyslexia to listen to recorded voices paired with cartoon avatars on computer screens. The subjects tried matching the voices to the correct avatars speaking English and then an unfamiliar language, Mandarin.

Nondyslexics matched voices to avatars correctly almost 70 percent of the time when the language was English and half the time when the language was Mandarin. But people with dyslexia were able to do so only half the time, whether the language was English or Mandarin. Experts not involved in the study said that was a striking disparity.

If you have any questions about Hearing Loss contact Hidden Hearing