Welcome to the Winter 2011 issue of SoundWaves – the Hearing Healthcare Centre quarterly newsletter.
We hope you find the information in this newslsetter interesting and useful. We always appreciate your views and comments.
It is with regret that we have to inform our Peterborough clients that Norma, our practice manager, has
had to leave us due to family circumstances. We wish her and all her family well. My wife Conny is stepping
in to fill the post in her absence.
We have been keeping very busy over the last few months and have found the new Widex Clear range and the Signature range to be exceptionally successful. Both companies have produced instruments which are very well designed and with additional devices for TV, phone and remote control units which are easy to use and work extremely well. Widex have also just produced a cordless phone which needs no setting up with their hearing instruments but communicates wirelessly to both aids without the need to hold the earpiece to the ear. For any normal hearing user it can be used like any ordinary phone. For more information please contact the Cambridge office on 01223 360700.
t the latter part of September, I was invited to the 60th anniversary of Snetterton with my MG “Emma”, where the Aston Martin Owners Club and Ferrari Owners Club were racing on the new 300 track. These two clubs were the first to race on this track when it was first used as an alternative to Firsfield. I was asked to take Emma for a parade lap and so invited Jack Seers, (a friend and colleague of Archie Scott Brown) to ride shotgun with me. He had never been in the car during Archie’s ownership so was
delighted to join me. We only had the safety car and a full race Ford Cosworth for company so after they took off we were able to give the car a good bit of exercise around the new track which was a great thrill for us both.
Nature has equipped all mammals with two equally functioning ears as a primary means of survival, both for locating food and for hearing approaching danger. For humans, two-eared hearing is just as necessary to survive in our modern noisy societies; to hear in traffic, in crowds and to understand speech. Hearing properly with two ears means the difference between simply listening to noise and hearing clearly with understanding.
The hearing centre of the brain relies on two independent ‘microphones’- the ears. If only one ear is functioning properly, there will be difficulty in understanding speech in noisy environments and in locating the direction from which the sound is coming. Scientific research as well as individual experience, confirms that most people with a hearing loss in both ears, can benefit greatly from wearing binaural (stereophonic) hearing instruments i.e. a hearing instrument for each ear that responds to sound correction. The major benefits are:-
Better understanding in noisy places – By wearing two hearing instruments rather than just one, selective listening is more easily achieved. This means your brain can focus on the conversation you want to hear and reduce the amount of unwanted background noise more easily.
Better identification of sound direction – Sound direction identification is called ‘localisation’ and is dependent upon two equally functioning ears. The effect can be dramatic if the sound is a warning signal such as an approaching car.
Clearer reception of softly-spoken words – When only one hearing instrument is worn, volume has to be at a higher level to compensate and this exaggerates interfering background noise and can distort these sounds.
Better sound quality – By wearing an instrument in each ear you increase your hearing distance range and this greater range provides a better sense of sound balance and quality.
Smoother tone quality – Amplification from two hearing instruments requires less volume than with one alone. This results in less distortion and better reproduction of amplified sound.
Better feeling of balance – Hearing with both ears results in a feeling of balanced sound reception also known as the “stereo effect”. Hearing with one ear often creates an unusual feeling of having a blocked or ‘dead’ ear.
Less tiring – Many binaural hearing instrument wearers report that listening to conversations is both less tiring and stressful because a lower volume is required to hear clearly, compared to hearing with one ear.
Two hearing instruments are not always suitable, but when they are, you can be sure that your hearing aid audiologist has your best hearing interest in mind.
Tinnitus is a ringing or buzzing in one or both ears and although many people have experienced this condition temporarily after being in a noisy environment or whilst suffering from a head cold, for over 7 million people in the UK, it never goes away.
Tinnitus has been and still is the object of extensive research in terms of establishing effective treatment methods or management strategies. Tinnitus is for many a distressing noise leading to increased stress and affected quality of life.
As stress is one of the highest exacerbating factors involved with tinnitus, stress reduction is a vital element in effective tinnitus management. To this end and inspired by the relaxing effect of certain types of music, Widex, a Danish hearing instrument manufacturing company, developed ‘Zen’ programs to help tinnitus sufferers.
Based on what is known as fractal technology which ensures that the music is predictable without repeating itself, Zen is a unique music program available in some Widex hearing instruments. Zen plays random, chime-like tones that can be used for relaxation and for making tinnitus less noticeable.
An experiment was conducted in 2009 at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) to determine the effectiveness of fractal tones, contained within this hearing instrument, with tinnitus patients. The experiment concluded that fractal tones corrected for hearing loss are effective in relaxing the tinnitus sufferer, as well as reducing the annoyance of tinnitus.
To find out more information on this technology, simply call us on 01733 392910.
Quintus Pedius was a Roman painter and the first deaf person in recorded history known by name. He is the first recorded deaf painter and his schooling is the first recorded education of a deaf child.
Long gone are the days when a hearing aid was a large, obvious, embarrassing flesh-coloured prosthesis with poor performance. Just like computers and mobile telephones from a decade ago, modern hearing aids are now available as much smaller devices and they
perform in unthinkable ways compared to ten years ago. The best type of hearing assistance depends on the level of hearing loss, lifestyle and size of ear canal. However, they are all significantly less noticeable than trying to cope unaided with hearing difficulties.
Here’s how to make your batteries last longer.
Zinc-air batteries should also be given a little time to “charge up” before they can be used. After removing the coloured tab, the battery will need air to work and it takes about a minute before the air has reacted to the zinc in the battery cell.
Do not throw batteries away once they have been used. They pollute the environment. Instead, hand them in to us where they will be sent to be recycled.
LACE (Listening and Communication Enhancement) is an interactive software training program that enhances your ability to communicate by maximizing listening skills and communication strategies.
Who can use LACE?
LACE is intended for adult patients, with or without hearing loss who have difficulty understanding speech in challenging listening environments where there are noisy surroundings, fast talkers or competing voices.
We hear with our ears but we listen with our brain. LACE retrains the brain and can improve comprehension by more than 40% in difficult situations. Contact us for further details.
On 7th & 8th October 2011, AIHHP – The Association of Independent Hearing Healthcare Professionals held its Autumn conference in Marlow, Buckinghamshire.
After a very full and intensive day spent listening to three extremely interesting keynote presentations and then further in-depth workshops to increase delegates knowledge and keep up to date with the very latest developments in the profession, delegates and manufacturer representatives were then entertained with the 2011 Golden Lobes Awards & Gala dinner.
This is an annual event that allows the association’s members to vote for a range of products, innovative concepts and stand-out individuals that have made a real difference to both audiologists and end-users of hearing assistive systems.
The awards ceremony has now become an event not to be missed and the nominations submitted for each category are of an ever-increasing standard of excellence. For an individual or company to receive an AIHHP ‘Golden Lobe’ is judged to be a high point in their service to this
profession.
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