What I found is that veteran tinnitus is clinically distinct from civilian tinnitus due to the severity of noise exposure and the augmenting effects of post-traumatic stress disorder and blast-induced traumatic brain injury.
Evidence of Brain Tissue Damage From Blast Overpressure
Our results indicate that a single unilateral blast significantly impairs the structural and functional integrity at all levels of the central auditory neuraxis, or the auditory pathway in the higher brain centers. Overall, it is evident that the structural integrity of brain tissue is compromised at all levels.
A Veteran of Afghanistan and Iraq Urges Better Hearing Protection for Soldiers
We often hear about the devastating injuries sustained by soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq. Their suffering is profound and should be a bigger part of our national consciousness. We Americans should also talk about the most common disabilities experienced by veterans—hearing loss and tinnitus. These are less visible but insidious conditions that can seriously upend every aspect of veterans’ lives: their overall physical and psychological wellness, along with social interactions, even work performance.
Americans With Hearing Loss Can Receive Free Telephone Captioning Services
Phone conversations can be exhausting and frustrating for individuals with hearing loss. Telephones render the communicators unable to see each other when talking, so they can’t take advantage of important visual cues, including knowing when it’s their turn to talk.
HHF Board Chair John Dillard Participates in Congressional Hearing Research Program
The Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs’ (CDMRP), Hearing Restoration Research Program (HRRP) consumer advocate John Dillard participated in January the evaluation of research applications submitted to the HRRP in January.
Veterans Leading the Way
HHF leaders John Dillard and Timothy Higdon are two U.S. Army veterans who bring, collectively, over four decades of military service to HHF as its Board of Directors chair and CEO, respectively. Here they share the perspectives and experiences gained from their service in the military and what they hope to accomplish in their new roles.
Combined Federal Campaign: Show Some Love
It’s easy to give to Hearing Health Foundation (HHF) through the Combined Federal Campaign (CFC). In 2018 donors pledged a total of more than $90 million through the CFC, the workplace giving program for current and retired federal and military personnel.
Katelyn and Solenne
Sisters Katelyn, 12, and Solenne, 11, of Connecticut, are among the tens of millions of individuals who benefit from advances in hearing loss research. Both girls were born with severe to profound hearing loss but showed no benefit from hearing aids. They have both since received cochlear implants (CIs).
Outsmarting the Most Common Military Injury: How One Veteran Is Helping Future Generations
After meeting qualifications through a rigorous annual application process, HHF Board Chair John Dillard has been a tinnitus consumer reviewer for three years, a role he expects to continue.
You Can Lead the Way
By Col. John Dillard, U.S. Army (Retired)
Folks like you are the reason Hearing Health Foundation (HHF) has just completed its 60th anniversary year of groundbreaking work toward better treatments and permanent cures for hearing loss and tinnitus. Your donations make it possible.
Tinnitus and hearing loss, respectively, are the number one and number two disabilities reported by returning American military personnel.
Thank you for everything you do.
Living with noise-induced hearing loss and tinnitus following 26 years of service in the U.S. Army, I strongly share your desire for more scientific developments — both to restore hearing and to prevent its loss.
Every person serving on our Board of Directors is also connected to a hearing disorder in some way and shares our passion for progress. It is coming. As each year passes we learn more and more about key processes in the brain and auditory system.
We’re grateful for these discoveries that bring us closer to hearing regeneration in adult mice (as human proxies for now), and toward new treatments for tinnitus, Ménière's disease, and related conditions. But we know more must be accomplished for all of us to enjoy a better quality of life.
Your generosity can make possible the discoveries we — our veterans, our parents, our children, our spouses, our friends — urgently need.
Please, if you are able, give today to HHF to fund more innovative scientists in 2019-2020 and accelerate much-needed treatments and cures.
HHF will direct 100% of your gift toward the program your choose — Hearing Restoration Project (HRP), Emerging Research Grants (ERG), Ménière's Disease Grants (MDG), or Education. Thank you for your consideration and for being part of our mission.