By Mitchell Batavia, PT, Ph.D.
Mitchell Batavia PT, Ph.D., is an associate professor of physical therapy at New York University and a person with a hearing impairment. In addition to cartoons and flash fiction, he has published healthcare textbooks with Elsevier and Butterworth-Heinemann.
As shown on “The Pitt,” when an American Sign Language (ASL) interpreter is unavailable or real-time captioning is missing, vital information is lost, leading to diagnostic and treatment delays.
Serotonin seems to quiet down excitatory neurons while boosting inhibitory ones. This differential modulation may help us to understand the role of serotonin in auditory disorders such as tinnitus and age-related hearing loss.
Today, I wear my “HARD OF HEARING” hoodie proudly because I’m no longer hiding from my hearing loss.
In addition to conducting research, I realized that prevention is just as important, or even more important than treatment. Noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL) is becoming increasingly prevalent among Gen Z—my peers—due to increased access to personal listening devices and loud entertainment events.
Younger and older adults improved at similar rates from lower levels of noise—meaning that both groups benefited equally from better listening conditions. But older adults needed a head start: They needed lower levels of background noise to reach the same accuracy.