New hearing loss project

AT the end of December 2012, Action on Hearing Loss was delighted to launch its ‘In Touch’ project, funded by the Big Lottery Fund for five years.

The launch in Harvester House, Belfast, was attended by Peter Osborne, representing the Big Lottery Fund, as well as service users and volunteers from Action on Hearing Loss. This £500k funding from the Big Lottery Fund’s Reaching Out: Connecting Older People programme will allow us to provide befriending support for isolated older people with hearing loss across Northern Ireland.

Action on Hearing Loss identified through its ‘Hear to Help’ project that many people with hearing loss are isolated and would benefit from a befriender to help reduce isolation and risk and to increase confidence. We are currently recruiting volunteers to become befrienders for the project, including volunteers who are deaf or hard of hearing themselves.

If you know an older person who could benefit, they must be referred through a trusted contact eg a GP, social worker, local politician’s office or another charity. They can either be living in their own home or in residential care.

Hearing loss happens gradually you may not even notice what you’re missing. The best thing you can do for yourself and your family is getting a free hearing evaluation from an audiologist to determine if you even have a hearing loss. If you do, at Hidden Hearing our friendly staff will guide through the path to better hearing.

Source: Belfast Telegraph

Prince Philip deaf to charms of Kylie Minogue, Alicia Keys, One Direction

THE QUEEN AND PRINCE PHILIP ARRIVE AT THE AT ROYAL ALBERT HALL FOR THE ROYAL VARIETY PERFORMANCE. PICTURE: GETTY IMAGES GETTY IMAGES

The 91-year-old royal consort this week accompanied the Queen, 86, to the Royal Variety Performance in London where the couple were treated to performances by artists including Kylie Minogue, Neil Diamond, One Direction and Alicia Keys.

After the event, hosted by Little Britain comedian David Walliams, Philip was asked which of the acts was his favourite.

“All of them … but to be honest we’re both stone deaf,” came his reply.

During American singer Key’s performance, Philip was spotted with his fingers in his ears, reported London’s Evening Standard newspaper.

The move follows the Queen’s use of earplugs earlier this year at a diamond jubilee concert staged in her honour in the forecourt of Buckingham Palace.

Hearing loss happens gradually you may not even notice what you’re missing. The best thing you can do for yourself and your family is getting a free hearing evaluation from an audiologist to determine if you even have a hearing loss. If you do, at Hidden Hearing our friendly staff will guide through the path to better hearing.

Guide to decibel levels

NOISE levels above 105 decibels (dB) can damage your hearing if endured for more than 15 minutes each week.

But lower levels, such as between 85dB and 90dB, can also cause permanent damage if you’re exposed to them for hours every day.

Here is a guide to decibel levels:

Normal conversation: 60-65dB;

a busy street: 75-85dB;

lawn mower/ heavy traffic: 85dB;

forklift truck: 90dB;

hand drill: 98dB;

heavy lorry about seven metres away: 95-100dB;

motorbikes: 100dB;

disco/club/car horn: 110dB;

MP3 player on loud: 112dB;

rock concert/ambulance siren: 120dB.

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

Man driving lawnmower across state to raise funds for children with hearing loss

We came across this great story from USA.  Bob Harms is crossing the state of Minnesota at a maximum speed of 7 mph to raise funds for children who are deaf or hard of hearing.

Harms began the journey across the state Aug. 20 on a Toro lawnmower and expects to finish Wednesday at the border with Iowa. He was welcomed Sunday by members of several area Lions clubs to the Rolf and Carol Peterson home on Henderson Lake near Spicer.

Today he’s heading south on U.S. Highway 71 to Redwood Falls. On Tuesday, he plans to visit the Toro plant in Windom.

Harms has suffered from hearing problems since infancy and has a surgically implanted bone-anchored hearing aid. He’s also the executive secretary of the Lions International District that includes Minnesota, northwestern Ontario and Manitoba and works from his home in Kingston.

The funds raised by the ride will go to the Minnesota Lions Children’s Hearing Center at the University of Minnesota Amplatz Children’s Hospital, and for research to improve the lives of children with hearing loss.

“Hearing is directly connected to speech,” Harms explained. “If hearing loss isn’t detected early, a child’s speech is affected.”

At the hearing center, Harms says, children see all of the doctors and specialists they need to help with their hearing issues in one day, streamlining the process and helping their little ears to hear what’s happening in the world around them.

The idea for the 485-mile ride came from a Lions convention earlier this year. Harms was trying to come up with an unusual fundraising idea. He knew a Lions member who had a connection at Toro and simply sent an email asking if the company would support him.

The response was the use of the Timecutter zero-turn-radius mower for the ride, which is fitted with a canopy, GPS locator and a trailer, but that was not all.

The company not only donated the use of the mower but is also offering a brand-new mower, not the one that Harms is riding, that will be raffled off, with all of the proceeds going to the hearing center.

“Toro has been absolutely fantastic in supporting this program,” Harms said.

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

Those childhood music lessons weren’t wasted after all!

Children who take music lessons have better hearing as adults even if they stopped playing their instrument after just a few years of practice, a new study suggests. People who learned to play an instrument while young are more responsive to complex sounds, making them better equipped to listen to a conversation in a noisy cafe or train carriage, researchers said.

Even those who had only played music for one to five years as a child showed a noticeable improvement over those who had never done so, in their brain’s ability to process sounds. Although previous studies have shown that playing music has a healthy impact on our brain, the new paper is the first to demonstrate that the effects last for many years after people have given up the hobby. Professor Nina Kraus of Northwestern University in Illinois, who led the study, said: “All these [previous] studies have been done in people who at the time of testing were still playing an instrument.

“This is really the first time that it has been demonstrated that in the more typical scenario – where someone has played a musical instrument for a number of years in childhood but then stopped – that prior training has a long-lasting effect on how their nervous system responds to sound.”

The researchers used electrodes to measure brain activity in 45 volunteers aged up to 31 as they listened to eight “complex” sounds, each comprising an array of different frequencies and timings to replicate the characteristics of speech or a piece of music.

Althouth they did not directly test participants’ hearing, monitoring the brain signal enabled the scientists to see how effectively the nervous system processed various elements of sound.

Compared with people who had never learned an instrument, those with some level of musical training had a stronger brain response to the sounds, the researchers reported in the Journal of Neuroscience. They were particularly effective at being able to pull out the “fundamental frequency”, the lowest frequency in sound which is key when listening to speech and music in noisy environments. Prof Kraus said: “Based on what we already know about the ways that music helps shape the brain, the study suggests that short-term music lessons may enhance lifelong listening and learning.

“We infer that a few years of music lessons also confer advantages in how one perceives and attends to sounds in everyday communication situations, such as noisy restaurants.”

There was no significant difference between those who had given up music after one to five years and those who had continued playing for up to eleven years, although the benefits from musical training were shown to dwindle slightly over time.

The scientists are already carrying out a second study to find out whether learning different instruments shapes the brain in different ways, and are planning a further experiment to see whether the benefits are still present in older adults.

If you have any questions about hearing or hearing loss contact Hidden Hearing or Call Free 0800 587 7267

We could hear them from 12 Miles away!

Thirty-two-thousand fans watched the musicians perform at Tennent’s Vital.

The two-day festival was held at Boucher playing fields in the south of the city for the first time.

Belfast City Council received about 120 calls of complaint. It is also believed the police received 20 calls.

A spokesman for the council said half of callers made a formal complaint about the concert sound being heard in other parts of the city. He said the remaining callers were content with the 23:00 BST curfew.

He also said the council had agreed sound levels with organisers in adavance of the event, but had worked with the promoter to reduce the sound levels when it became aware the noise could clearly be heard around the city.

“In advance of the concerts, the promoters wrote to residents in the immediate vicinity, advising them of the events. There were no objections to the granting of the entertainments licence,” he added.

The council spokesman said the Belfast Visitor and Convention Bureau had confirmed that every hotel bed in the city was booked for both nights of the festival.

“It is regrettable that people were inconvenienced by last night’s event but we hope they can see the bigger picture,” he said.

Exceptionally loud

The Stone Roses will be joined by English band Florence and the Machine, Rodrigo Y Gabriela, Gerard i2 and Maverick Sabre when they head line the event on Wednesday.

SDLP councillor Claire Hanna said she had received calls from constituents last night.

“It was exceptionally loud. I welcome that we have concerts of this level… but we do have to balance it with the right of people to enjoy a quiet night at home,” she said.

“I understand that the noise carried partly because it was a very still and cloudless night.

“Most residents understand that people want to enjoy a night out but a second night at the same level might provoke a few more calls.”

Eileen Fee who lives about a mile away from the concert venue in Osborne Park, Belfast, said it was so loud the “windows shook”.

“I just thought I was at the concert, that’s how loud it was. It was really impossible to do anything else at home,” she said.

“It was just a really dreadful situation. I’m not against the concert but there is an acceptable level of noise.”

Businesswoman Grainne McGarvey said she, too, could hear the music from her home about four miles away.

“I pretty much heard every ooh and ah and beat of the drum,” she said.

Foo Fighters front man Dave Grohl entertained the crowd at the Tennent’s Vital festival

“I was actually offered a ticket for the concert but I turned it down as I’m not a big fan of the Foo Fighters but I still managed to hear the entire thing.

“I can’t wait for Florence and the Machine as I’m a big fan and I think it’s fantastic that the bands are here. Tonight I will be sitting with my windows open and a wee glass of wine and not have to worry about getting soaked.”

People on BBC Newsline’s Facebook page claimed they heard the concert in locations such as Gilnahirk and 12 miles away in Ballygowan in County Down.

Hidden Hearing Northern Ireland carry out FREE hearing tests in there clinics and branches if you have any questions check out www.hiddenhearing.org

One Direction star losing hearing with screaming fans!

Louis Tomlinson of One Direction has told how the sound of his fans is leaving him with hearing loss and tinnitus – causing the boyband to take extra precautions at live shows.

The singer, who joined the band when he auditioned for X Factor in 2010 – and has since enjoyed worldwide success, has revealed that fevered fans have left him suffering tinnitus and that he is going deaf in his right ear.

“I am actually going slightly deaf in my right ear. It’s tinnitus… something like that,” Tomlinson tells Radio City Live, shortly before a headline performance in Liverpool last week.

“All our fans are always very loud, especially Scousers,” he added, laying blame on Liverpool fans for his loss of hearing.

A source for the band tells The Daily Record that precautions are in place to ensure the condition doesn’t worsen – and to protect the band’s staff and relations.

“When watching them, the band’s security team and family now have to wear earplugs,” says the source. “The guys are only young, and still developing, so management insist they wear special, hi-tech in-ear earpieces and filters to reduce the noise of the fans’ screaming. It also reduces the levels of bass and music from the stage.

“When Louis made his comments, he had really bad earache but, thankfully, this has now cleared up but he knows to be careful in future.”

Hearing loss and tinnitus are serious issues if you have any concerns about these contact Hidden Hearing.

Derek Mooney is on a search for heroes from the deaf community.

The RTE broadcaster says too many celebrities get awards for no reason when there are hidden heroes everywhere.

He is supporting Hidden Hearing, in partnership with the Irish Deaf Society, which wants nominations for people with hearing impairments for the 2012 Heroes Awards.

“Recognising anyone who does something good in the community is important. So many actors and musicians and politicians get honorary doctorates for doing nothing. These kind of awards mean so much to the unsung heroes,” said Derek.

Fantastic

Speaking at the launch, Hidden Hearing managing director Stephen Leddy said “There are many people in the deaf and hard of hearing communities who are living proof that being deaf or hard of hearing does not have to hold you back in life.”

He described how the awards can bring people who have lost their hearing out of their shell and show them that they can still do great things.

“They are important in recognising people, deaf and hard of hearing, who do fantastic work which normally goes unacknowledged.”

There are nine Award Categories in total this year:

• ·         Social Contribution Award – recognising contributions to society / communities
• ·         Workplace Award – an award for someone who has excelled in the workplace
• ·         Youth Award – for those aged between 6 – 18 who have achieved much in their young lives
• ·         Grandparent Award – nominations for a special grandparent
• ·         Sportsperson Award – recognising outstanding sporting achievement
• ·         Media Award – for a campaigner who has highlighted topics related to those who are Deaf or hard of hearing
• ·         Lifetime Achievement Award – for an individual who has played a key role over their lifetime.
• ·         Student Award – an award for a Deaf / hard of hearing student who has excelled at second or third level education.
• ·         Organisation Award – for an organisation that works on behalf of or in conjunction with Deaf / hard of hearing communities.

 

 You can enter your nomination by clicking here >

Springsteen, McCartney concert silenced!

Fans attending Bruce Springsteen’s concert in London’s Hyde Park on Saturday never got to hear the end of the show because concert organizers turned all the microphones off.

As part of Springsteen’s Hard Rock Calling concert series, 76,000 people braved the London elements to see Springsteen and his special guest stars in concert. Springsteen’s last guest was Paul McCartney and as they were singing “Twist and Shout,” the concert went silent. The band had gone past Hyde Park’s 10:30 p.m. curfew and subsequently were unplugged.

Hyde Park spans 350 acres and is located next to wealthy London neighborhoods. The occupants of these neighborhoods are none too happy with the late night noise and mayhem that accompany these concerts.

It seems as though guitar player Steven Van Zandt was none too happy about the curfew. He wrote on Twitter:

“English cops may be the only individuals left on earth that wouldn’t want to hear one more from Bruce Springsteen and Paul McCartney! On a Saturday night! Who were we disturbing? There’s no grudges to be held. Just feel bad for our great fans. … It’s some City Council stupid rule. Seriously, when did England become a police state Is there just too much fun in the world?”

Rules are rules and they are not meant to be broken, at least not for The Boss in London’s Hyde Park.

If you have any question about hearing loss or hearing aids contact Hidden Hearing.

Source Examiner: Read More >

BIEBER fever? Not exactly.

The 18-year-old pop star is being sued for $9 million by a woman who claims her hearing was damaged at one of his concerts.

Stacey Wilson Betts says her hearing loss occurred after she took her daughter to the singer’s concert on July 14, 2010 in Portland, Oregon.

Stacey said it was incredibly loud inside the arena due to shrieking fans.

“I was injured by a sound blast that exceeded safe decibel levels. I suffer hearing loss, tinnitus and hyperacusis in both ears”, Betts claimed in the lawsuit, TMZ reports.

The suit alleges that Bieber “created a wave like effect of screaming by pointing into various sections of the arena.”

As a result, Betts claims she now suffers from tinnitus, which causes a constant pulsing, whooshing sound that makes it hard to sleep, along with other hearing-related damage.

The woman is suing Bieber, his label Island Def Jam Records, the concert promoter and the arena for a whopping $US9.23 million in damages.

Read more: http://www.news.com.au/entertainment/celebrity/justin-bieber-hit-with-9m-lawsuit-screaming-fans-damaged-my-ears/story-e6frfmqi-1226425520262#ixzz20UcRy878