Archive for June, 2017

Decorating hearing aids is a great way to show off individual style and increase confidence. Phonak hEARo Jessica Flores walks us through one way to decorate hearing aids.

“It’s totally up to you if you want to decorate them,” she says. “If you don’t want to decorate them, that’s fine. But while we have them, we might as well make them something that we enjoy wearing!”

Nail stickers, sticky paper and washi tape are some popular methods to decorate hearing aids. There are also pre-cut options that make decorating hearing aids super simple, such as Skinit designs for Phonak hearing aids and accessories.

Those who do decorate their hearing aids say they feel more confident.

“When I wore beige hearing aids, I couldn’t help but feel embarrassed by them; they felt like large, ugly bananas behind my ears, and I was compelled to constantly hide them,” says Phonak hEARo Eloise Garland. “Nobody knew that I was deaf, and anyone who caught a glimpse of my hearing aids wouldn’t ask me about them out of fear of upsetting or embarrassing me.

“In contrast, when I began to decorate them, my confidence gradually increased as I felt a sense of ownership and pride over my hearing aids. My bright hearing aids also directly challenge society’s perceptions. They are pink and often covered with brightly colored stickers and patterns and have pink, lilac, and white swirled ear molds and colored tubes attached to them.”

Read more: Why I Decorate My Hearing Aids

A few summers ago, I had one of my worst nightmares come true.

My hearing aids got wet.

When it happened, it was like super slow motion, as gravity pulled me into the pool. I tried to find some way to keep my head above water.  I flailed my arms and kicked away I can only imagine my face being covered in sheer terror.

I never thought they would survive.

The Pool Party

It all happened when I was working on a guest ranch in Wyoming.  I was living and working as a cabin host (fancy name for housekeeper) lives away from the nearest city – or even a sufficient town for that matter. Around July 4, we had an employee party with dinner, along with the privilege to use the swimming pool, which mostly off limits to non-guests.

I was fully clothed and was walking from one end to the pool to the other, when suddenly one of my colleagues thought it would be really funny to push me in.  (If I had not been wearing my hearing aids, I would have thought so too!)

He snuck up behind me and gave me a good push. I immediately only thought of one thing – my hearing aids.

Then, I hit the water and the pool swallowed me.

I immediately swam up in panic mode out of the pool, exited the water and ran back to my dorm room.  I couldn’t help but cry and have all those questions of what I was going to do without my hearing aids run through my head.

How I saved my hearing aids

When I got back to my room, I took my hearing aids off, removed the batteries and tried to dry the case as much as I could.

A couple girls who saw what happened had gotten a bag of rice from the kitchen and brought it to me. I put the my hearing aids in the bag and let the rice soak up any moisture for a couple of hours.

The girls comforted me and all I could do was wait and see if the water had any impact on my wet hearing aids.

Thankfully, a couple of hours later, I slowly put them on my ears and hit the power door for the verdict – they worked!

Did I have waterproof hearing aids?

After this experience I learned that my Phonak hearing aids actually are water resistant.

They aren’t made to scuba dive with, or be in water for long periods of time, but they can handle being submerged or splashed with water here and there.

Phonak Tip: Phonak hearing aids have an IP67 rating. (IP is the Ingress Protection or International Protection rating system, which is a classification system showing the degrees of protection from solid objects and liquids.)  The first number 6 is the level of dust protection which is dust proof. The second number, 7 is the level of water or moisture protection. This means it is water resistant to a level that it could withstand up to 30 min in 3 feet of water before it must go into the company for repair due to water damage.

This fact is actually amazing, and I wish I had known this before – seeing how terrified I was after the pool incident.

Read more: Ask Anna: What do I do when my hearing aids get wet?

In the end, I was ecstatic that I had lived one of my true nightmares and had made it out alive. Traveling and just daily life in general can leave you faced with lot of scenarios that can lead to a hearing aid’s demise (including my dog eating my hearing aids.)

Now, I know I can at least enjoy being around water without too much worry.  My dog is another story. 

contributor Jamie Del Pizzo to Hearing Like Me

Jamie is a 25-year-old who loves to travel and do extreme sports, such as surfing and snowboarding. She has bi-lateral, severe-to-profound hearing loss, and wears the Phonak Naida hearing aids. She’s currently traveling the world and documenting her travels through her photography on Instagram @jaybirdphoto

Hearing health experts have suspected that smoking contributes to hearing loss since an initial study in 1962; however, on-going studies confirm it. Smokers are 70 percent more likely than non-smokers to suffer hearing loss, according to an article in the June 1998 Journal of the American Medical Association. The study also found that non-smokers living with a smoker were twice as likely to develop hearing loss as those who were not exposed at all.

Young smokers’ hearing health is at risk, too. Researchers from the New York University School of Medicine found that teens exposed to cigarette smoke are to two to three times as likely to develop hearing loss compared to those with little or no exposure. Eighty percent of the participants in the 2011 study had no idea their hearing health had been affected.

Cigarettes contain a lot of nasty chemicals, including formaldehyde, arsenic, ammonia, hydrogen cyanide and nicotine. Nicotine and carbon monoxide deplete oxygen levels and constrict blood vessels all over your body – including those in your inner ear responsible for maintaining hair cell health.

• Nicotine interferes with neurotransmitters in the auditory nerve, which are responsible for telling the brain which sound you are hearing.
• Nicotine can cause tinnitus, dizziness and vertigo.
• Smoking irritates the Eustachian tube and lining of the middle ear.
• Smoking damages cells in the body, turning them into free radicals that can damage DNA and cause disease.
• Smoking may also make you more sensitive to loud noises and therefore more susceptible to developing noise-induced hearing loss.

Content provided by HealthyHearing

A lot of things are more difficult without the sense of hearing, but darkness might be our biggest weakness.

People with hearing loss often make up for the lack of sound it with visuals. Whether it’s reading lips, body language, sign language or our surroundings, we rely heavily on our eyes. When the sun sets, we lose even more of our senses, and this can be really scary.

As an outgoing, outdoorsy woman, I seem to spend a good amount of time in the dark. I love camping, moonlit snowboarding, bonfires, headlamp hiking or photography excursions to get starry images. I’ve done a lot of these nighttime activities but they don’t get easier! Each experience is different but most don’t make me feel “good.” I have overcome many obstacles, I’ve grown to love myself, accept what I need, what I can or can’t do and persevere through things. However, night activities are unique in the fact that I fail at a lot of moments but I keep putting myself in these tough situations because of my love of the outdoors, adventures and connecting with people.

Normally, I can communicate pretty fluidly with people, but once it gets dark it sometimes becomes impossible. It can be very isolating, frustrating, scary and degrading. Not being able to talk to people without shining a blinding headlamp in their face becomes aggravating.

“…once it gets dark it sometimes becomes impossible. It can be very isolating, frustrating, scary and degrading.”

Doing nighttime activities takes a bit of mental preparation. If it is an outing with close, long time friends sometimes they already know how it works and will make sure I can see them in some way. Or when it is just me and another person, conversation becomes a bit easier then if it was a group of people.

The double whammy comes when it is with a large group of people. I often camp with 10 or more people and at night, people will sit around the fire and chat for hours. This is a time where I’m not able to be my fullest self. A lot of times, I end up just sitting there and contemplating life. Or I will talk to someone sitting next to me with a lot of concentration, depending on how bright the fire is.

The most embarrassing, hopeless situation is meeting strangers in the dark. It is really hard to describe this because it becomes a very internal experience. Sometimes it works out somehow, whether a friend helps and explains that I lip read, other times the situation becomes awkward and I’m left feeling inadequate and insufficient. People will attempt to converse as I try to mediate the doomed preconception that I’m not normal.

Bonfires are pretty popular with my friends and people I choose to hang out with. Currently, I just relocated to Southeast Alaska for a summer job working for a guiding company. There have been a handful of bonfires already. The real Jaime, wants to go, mingle, make friends and connect with people. However, those thoughts also come with the warning that I might just be isolated in my own world at said bonfire.

As I get older, I sometimes find myself avoiding these situations which is really hard since I am mostly a social person who does not like to miss out on anymore then I already do.

-contributor Jamie Del Pizzo to Hearing Like Me

Jamie is a 25-year-old who loves to travel and do extreme sports, such as surfing and snowboarding. She has bi-lateral, severe-to-profound hearing loss, and wears the Phonak Naida hearing aids. She’s currently traveling the world and documenting her travels through her photography on Instagram @jaybirdphoto

Auditory training might improve the ability of older participants with hearing loss to recognize the speech of their spouse and improve communication interactions between couples, according to a new study.

Historically, audiologists have tended to assume that familiarity with a voice might limit the patient’s ability to further improve understanding of that same voice, but researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis are hoping to determine whether auditory training with the speech of an individual’s spouse can lead to enhanced recognition of their spouse’s speech.

 The Study

By listening to recordings of words being spoken by a range of different voices, including spouses’, researchers were able to track communication and speech recognition.

“Our program includes traditional generic voices, but we also have a recording and editing system that lets patients train with the voices of people they most want to hear—often spouses, children or grandchildren,” said researcher Tye-Murray in an interview for Futurity.org. “The patient’s spouse, for example, sits down and records the samples. Our software edits the audio clips. As soon as the recording is finished, the patient can begin training with his or her spouse’s voice.”

Each participant worked with an audiologist, who served as a coach, providing encouragement and monitoring progress. Tye-Murray says her research shows that patients want to know that a professional cares that they are training, and they want the professional’s encouragement and structured guidance.

“Tye-Murray says her research shows that patients want to know that a professional cares that they are training, and they want the professional’s encouragement and structured guidance.”

The training program can be used by anyone dealing with hearing loss, whether hearing aids, cochlear implants, or no hearing devices are in use.

“Some people with hearing loss don’t want to use these devices,” Tye-Murray told Futurity.org. “We want to make sure people know they can use this training program even without augmented hearing.

“Conversation is a cooperative effort—there are implicit rules that people follow when speaking with another person, but when people have hearing loss, they break these implicit rules without realizing it. It may appear that they’re not paying attention, but the problem may be simply that they can’t hear what’s being said. They miss subtle cues, and that can make conversation difficult.

“…there are implicit rules that people follow when speaking with another person, but when people have hearing loss, they break these implicit rules without realizing it.”

“We want to bring these problems into the light and talk about them, deal with them and come up with solutions that help patients communicate with the people who are most important in their daily lives.”

The Results 

At the end of the six weeks, performance on a word identification task did not change, however, the research subjects indicated subjectively that training reduced their communication difficulties.

“Results suggest that auditory training might improve the ability of older participants with hearing loss to recognize the speech of their spouse and might improve communication interactions between couples,” according to the The Journal of Speech, Language and Hearing. “The results support a task-appropriate processing framework of learning, which assumes that human learning depends on the degree of similarity between training tasks and desired outcomes.”

The researchers have launched a St. Louis-based start-up company to provide the software to patients and hearing health-care professionals, according to Futrity.org.

Mandy Harvey, a singer with hearing loss, wowed judges with her perfectly pitched vocals on the reality TV show, ‘America’s Got Talent,’ on Tuesday.

Harvey, who lost her hearing about 10 years ago due to degenerative ear disease, was awarded the “Golden Buzzer” after her performance that received a standing ovation and hug from judge Simon Cowell.

“I’ve done this a long time and that was one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen and heard,” Simon said.

“…that was one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen and heard”

Harvey said she’s been singing since age four but stopped singing for a while after she lost her hearing. Harvey lost her residual hearing in 2006-2007  due to a connective tissue disorder that effected her nerves, according to her website.

“After I lost my hearing I gave up, but I want to do more with my life than just give up,” she told the judges.

To sing with her hearing loss, Harvey says she relies on muscle memory using visual tuners. She has also learned to trust her pitch. During her performance, she stood on stage without her shoes on in order to feel the music’s tempo through the vibrations.

Read more: How hearing rehabilitation can help deaf musicians

She performed an original song called ‘Try,’ which inspired Simon to award her with the Golden Buzzer. Each judge can only press the Golden Buzzer once each season. The act sends the deaf singer straight to the live shows.

Follow Harvey’s journey on  ‘America’s Got Talent,’ which airs in the U.S. on Tuesdays at 8/7c on NBC.

People with normal hearing – especially parents, spouses and friends of those with hearing loss – are often eager to better understand what hearing loss sounds like. While a blindfold worn around the house for an afternoon might help someone learn what it’s like to live without vision, hearing loss comes in varying degrees and forms. Simply blocking out all sound won’t provide the right information. To really understand the complex nature of hearing loss, you have to experience the loss of both volume as well as specific sounds.

Using computer simulation algorithms, we’ve put together a group of audio files that simulate what someone with sensorineural hearing loss is able to hear in specific contexts. The sound files are grouped by type, from conversations in different contexts – background noise; restaurant; traffic – to various kinds of music. For each sound clip, you can listen to what it sounds like with “normal” hearing, as well as mild and moderate hearing loss. Here’s the hearing loss simulator link:

Hearing Loss Simulator

About  the Hearing Loss Simulator

Which sounds, and how much of each sound a person with hearing loss misses, depends on the degree of loss. For the person who still has some hearing and is listening to speech, the missing sounds are often the consonants P, K, F, H, T, and S, and the Sh sounds. Higher voices and higher-pitched sounds are harder to hear, as well, and it’s more difficult to hear anything when there’s background noise involved. So, unlike the blindfold experiment, wearing earplugs or noise-cancelling headphones isn’t a good way for a hearing person to experience hearing loss.

If you have hearing loss, consider sharing this this page to your friends and family. It may finally show them why you need them to look at you the next time they’re asking “SO HOW ARE YOU?” at a busy restaurant.

At 77, Linda White hears all right in one-on-one settings but has problems in noisier situations. “The person could be right beside you, but you still don’t hear them.” White, a retired elementary school teacher and principal, has not gotten hearing aids, although she says she probably will in the future. Instead, she’s part of a group of people testing out a different intervention for dealing with hearing loss: learning music. She is part of an ongoing study organized by Frank Russo, a professor of psychology and director of the Science of Music, Auditory Research and Technology Lab, or SMART Lab, at Ryerson University in Toronto.

Hearing aids can only help so much, because separating speech from noise is not so much a task for our ears as it is for our brains. As people age, something declines along the pathway between the inner ear and the brain’s auditory cortex, explains Russo. “[Although] hearing aids are becoming increasingly remarkable in their ability to suppress noise, they can’t completely correct this problem of [the] aging auditory systems,” Russo says.

Previous research has found that aging musicians fare better than non-musicians when it comes to distinguishing speech from noise, even when their overall hearing is no better than that of non-musicians. So Russo and his colleagues are getting older adults to join a choir, with no musical experience or talent required, and then testing whether it changes how their brains process speech in noisy environments. “We wanted to see how short-term could we make the musical training. How quickly can we see these improvements?” says Ella Dubinsky, a graduate student in the SMART Lab who recruits study participants from among the choir singers. The Ryerson University SMART Lab plans to present some initial findings from their research at a conference on music, sound and health in Boston this summer.

Content by National Public Radio

While my hearing loss doesn’t limit the things I can do in daily life, it certainly does play a factor in everyday tasks. I recently bought my first car, and noticed in this situation how shopping with hearing loss affected my purchase, especially in situations where I had to deal with sales people.

As with any big purchase, whether it’s a piece of technology, a car or a house – there’s always a salesperson involved. As helpful as they are, they are trained to make you believe that you need the product or service, and that you will lose out if you don’t purchase it. If they have targets to meet, they will try and get the best deal for the company. So how can you ensure you’re in the best position to close a deal, as a person with hearing loss?

Here are a few of my tips to ensure that you get the best offer you can get!

1. Do your homework!

Before you set off to buy anything, always do your research into what you are looking for! I can’t stress how much it really helps. There are many places to look, this can be online or by talking to a family member, friend, etc. When we were shopping for my new car, my parents and I looked online at different car garages to see what they had on offer. We wrote down all the kinds of details we were looking for and these definitely helped on the day.

2. Set a budget

   

Decide how much you would be willing to spend on this item. This can help when meeting with the salesperson as it can eliminate the more expensive products from the process. It also means that you won’t exceed what you may have available in your bank account!

3. Write down a list of places to visit

   

It helps to write a list of places down so that you can plan where you need to go to look for the best offer. Don’t always go for the first place with the product or service, as there might be another competitor offering the same thing for a fraction of the price.

In my situation, the salesman was talking about all these different insurance options that were available with the car. Some people may argue that it would be easier to agree to certain insurance policies when purchasing the car, but be mindful that you might be able to get it elsewhere cheaper.

4. Take someone with you, who knows a bit more about the product/service.

   

This person can be your extra set of ears. They can listen out for you in case you may miss something, or if you need something interpreted into simple English. They would often have a different view on things and can give you another side to it.

When we spoke to the salesman about this car we saw, he explained all these different insurance policies. For someone like myself with a hearing loss, the way they describe the product or service can be quite advanced. Often using confusing or unusual words in order to sound ‘impressive’ and ‘professional’, however deaf people need it simplified. My mum was quite good at relaying it to me to ensure I was involved in the conversation.

5. Negotiate

   

To get the best deal, you have to be clever. This is a chance to show that you’ve done your research. Ask the salesperson questions, ask them if they would consider reducing the price. Other ways of bargaining are to ask them to ‘throw in’ extras such as warranties, service plans, the road fund licence or a tank of fuel.

6. Don’t look too keen and be prepared to walk away

   

This is a salesperson’s worst nightmare! The last thing they want you to do is to walk out of the door. Be prepared to say “no.” They are trained to make you believe you need the product or service, and that you will lose out without it. They may claim that it will save you money in long run, but if you have a chance to think about it, also look into the small print, it might not be as good as the salesperson makes it out to be.

The salesman at garage spent an hour going through various different insurance products ranging from upholstery to dents and scrapes to accident coverage. As my car is a used car, we saw that the upholstery wasn’t worth getting, as it’s not likely that they would get worn. Eventually, he gave us a deal where we could get one of the big insurance policies for free if we purchased that car on the day – which was a result!

Content provided by www.hearinglikeme.com and written by Ellen Parfitt