Show our Veterans that You Are Hear For A Cure

By Pallavi Bharadwaj

Can you imagine returning home after serving in the military for your country without your hearing and with constant ringing in your ears?

Credit: @srz/Unsplash

Tinnitus and noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL) are the number one and two war wounds among veterans returning home. In the past decade, over one million service members have been impacted by tinnitus, hearing loss, and/or other auditory disorders.

To provide support to the community of veterans with hearing problems, Hearing Health Foundation (HHF) launched a veterans’ resource center on our website. This section is designed to help veterans cope with hearing loss and tinnitus. Resources such as research updates on new treatment options, stories from veterans who have been affected, and topical features from Hearing Health magazine can be accessed here.

Most importantly, we would like to share with our service members the exciting prospect of a cure for hearing loss and tinnitus through our Hearing Restoration Project (HRP). The HRP is working to translate the ability in chickens to restore hearing for humans in order to deliver a cure for veterans and for all those suffering from hearing loss and tinnitus.

If you are a veteran, current service member, or have family or friends who have bravely served our country, review these resources about hearing loss and tinnitus.

Communication Is Critical to Care

By Kathi Mestayer

I recently visited my father, who wears a cochlear implant, in a rehab facility, where he was recovering from surgery.

His room, right next to the nurses’ station, was pretty noisy. There was a constant array of beeps, rings, clanging equipment, and talk. I measured the noise level with my decibel meter smartphone app (AudioTools) and got a reading of around 65 dBA inside the room, about 10 feet from the door. That’s equivalent to normal conversation, but it could make it very difficult for a person with a cochlear implant to correctly understand a medical question.

The rehab center staff was well-meaning, attentive, and caring. But the level of awareness of communication problems for those with hearing loss was spotty.  

• No captioning phones (and no idea of whether they would work in the facility).  

• No idea of what a cochlear implant looked like.

• No way to communicate in writing.

To be fair, that’s not unusual. Earlier this year, I visited my uncle in the hospital. He had had a hearing loss for years. Due to his Parkinson’s disease, he also had a hard time speaking. They were having difficulty getting him to agree to the doctor’s recommendation of a colonoscopy. He was under the mistaken impression that they were talking about a colostomy, and hesitant to agree. Fortunately, I had brought in a whiteboard and marker the day before. I wrote the words “Colonoscopy” and “Colostomy” in big letters on the board, and crossed out “Colostomy” with a big X. He took the write board and wrote “U Sure?” on it. “YES,” I said, nodded, and wrote on the board. He agreed to the procedure on the spot.

I recently became aware of a two-year-old Department of Justice (DoJ) program called the Barrier-Free Healthcare Initiative. The Department of Justice, which also oversees the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), has committed resources and attention to the important work of providing, among other things, effective communication for patients with hearing loss in hospitals, pharmacies, rehab facilities, and doctors’ offices.

Useful resources:

Click here to get the full scope of the Barrier-Free Healthcare Initiative.

The ADA’s primer on how to communicate effectively with people who have hearing loss.

And if you’re wondering whether the DoJ is making headway, read updates here including about the success the DoJ has had working with healthcare facilities to help them meet the ADA requirements.  

Kathi Mestayer writes about workplace noise issues. Read her articles here:

• This Is Your Workplace on Noise

• Undercover Noise Cop

• Closed Captioning: Keeping the Pace

• Restaurant Conversation: Not Just for the "Early Birds" Any More

The Harm from Noise

By Pallavi Bharadwaj

Workplace noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL) is among the most common type of NIHL in the United States, among other countries. In the U.S., 30 million workers are estimated to be at risk for NIHL, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Austrian researchers recently presented a study titled “Early prognosis of noise-induced hearing loss”  recently in the journal Occupational & Environmental Medicine. 

It has long been assumed that some individuals are more vulnerable to occupational NIHL than others because of the wide variation in hearing loss after equivalent exposures. Earlier attempts to define predictors of workplace NIHL susceptibility have been inconclusive. Recently in the journal Occupational & Environmental Medicine, Austrian researchers presented a study titled “Early prognosis of noise-induced hearing loss” that evaluated the potential of temporary threshold shift (TTS) to predict future NIHL.

Between 1982 and 1989, 311 participants (welders and fitters) were included in a prospective study during their initial health screening visit. At this occasion, a standardized noise exposure was applied: 20 minutes at frequencies of 200 to 500 hertz (Hz) and at a volume of 100 dBA. The TTS at 4 kilohertz (kHz) was determined during at least 10 minutes after exposure. Hearing loss was monitored at follow-up visits every three to five years, averaging 13 years in total.

The Austrian researchers say the temporary threshold shift (TTS) model can be successfully applied as a method to detect individuals at greater risk of workplace NIHL. It is recommended to routinely include such a procedure into initial workers’ examinations for suitability to work under occupational noise conditions and for counseling on the use of hearing protection.

Read the abstract here.

To learn more about workplace noises see:       

• Protection for All

• This Is Your Workplace on Noise

• Office Space

The Danger From Noise When It Is Actually Music

By Yishane Lee

Les Paul Ambassador

John Colianni

Noise-induced hearing loss affects anyone exposed to very loud or chronic noise. It doesn’t matter if the “noise” is actually music. It has been estimated that up to half of classical orchestral musicians have hearing loss because of their work in music, practicing or performing up to eight hours a day. Sound levels onstage, no matter the music genre, can reach up to 110 decibels (dB), although it is not usually continuous. That is equivalent to a jackhammer—even if there’s a melody behind it.

Researchers at the Nofer Institute of Occupational Medicine in Poland measured the exposure for classical musicians as 81 to 90 dBA (A-weighted decibels, a unit of measure for how humans perceive sound) for 20 to 45 hours a week. In their study published in the International Journal of Occupational Safety and Ergonomics, they estimated that this exposure over the course of a career increases the risk of a hearing loss of 35 dB by 26 percent. At the greatest risk for hearing loss are those in the brass section—horn, trumpet, tuba—as well as those playing percussion, the study found.

Prolonged exposure at 85 dB (the sound of heavy traffic) will permanently damage the delicate hair cells of the inner ear, leading to hearing loss. Tinnitus, or ringing in the ears, is another potential problem. Roughly 90 percent of tinnitus cases occur with an underlying hearing loss.

Not surprisingly, rock and jazz musicians are not immune. Indeed, there are a number of well-known rock and pop musicians who have publicly discussed their hearing loss and/or tinnitus, among them Sting, Eric Clapton, Neil Young, Phil Collins, and Will.i.am.

But hearing loss due to noise (or music) is completely preventable. A related study by the Polish scientists determined that brass players benefitted the most from the use of custom-molded, silicone earplugs with acoustic filters that reduced sound levels. Woodwind, percussion, and string players also benefited.

In 2013, the Les Paul Foundation and HHF teamed up to launch the Les Paul Ambassadors program. Guitar great Les Paul was determined to find a cure for hearing loss and tinnitus, and through his foundation’s support of HHF’s Hearing Restoration Project, an international research consortium of top hearing scientists, we have the opportunity to find a cure. Learn about the program and the first Ambassador, Lou Pallo, as well as our other Ambassadors saxophonist Chris Potter and jazz pianist John Colianni.

Learn more about NIHL and its risk factors, treatment, and prevention in our new Summer issue of Hearing Health magazine.

Protect Your Ears This July 4!

By Tara Guastella

The Fourth of July is a great time for barbecues, trips to the beach, and spending time with friends and family. But fireworks and firecrackers, ubiquitous to many Independence Day celebrations, not only are a potential fire hazard, they also can do permanent damage to one's ears.

These beautiful spectacles measure between 140 and 165 decibels. This means that even one minute of exposure to them can cause immediate, permanent hearing loss.  

When exposed to sounds that are too loud or loud sounds that last a long time, such as a fireworks display, delicate cells in our inner ear can be damaged, causing noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL). These sensory hair cells in the inner ear convert sound energy into electrical signals that travel to the brain. Once damaged, our hair cells cannot grow back.

While you're enjoying summertime get-togethers, remember to pack ear protection, such as earplugs or earmuffs, and don't forget a pair for the kids! Also remember to Walk, Block, and Turn:

Walk away from loud sounds.

Block loud sounds with ear protection.

Turn the volume down (when you can control it).

Learn more about how loud is too loud today.

We wish you and your family a happy, healthy, and safe Fourth of July holiday!

Stay tuned for more about NIHL—its symptoms, prevention, treatment, and related conditions such as tinnitus—in the upcoming Summer issue of Hearing Health magazine. Get a free subscription by signing up here. We also wish to salute and thank our military service members, who are disproportionately affected by hearing loss and tinnitus as a result of their service, on this American holiday.

This Memorial Day, We Honor Our Veterans Who Disproportionately Suffer from Hearing Loss & Tinnitus

By Tara Guastella

In early May, I attended the Classy awards collaborative weekend in San Diego, where hundreds of people making a difference in the nonprofit sector came together to find ways to innovate and collaborate. During one of the sessions, I learned of a startling statistic: 22 veterans commit suicide each day.

When I heard this, the first thing that popped into my mind was the fact that 60 percent of veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan have hearing loss or tinnitus. These conditions have consistently been the top two health complaints at Veteran Affairs Medical Centers. Hearing loss is also linked to higher rates of depression.

Since hearing problems are so prevalent among military service members, as are such mental health concerns as depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, I began to wonder what services are provided to veterans to help them adjust. I soon learned that organizations like the Easter Seals Dixon Center (whom I met at the Classy awards weekend) are building collaborative networks in local communities to provide a holistic approach to veteran care.

The Dixon Center has built a network of more than 20,000 organizations and like-minded individuals, serving over 560 communities. They help communities identify and mobilize direct services to support educational and employment opportunities alongside services for healthcare, legal and financial advice, and housing. I was happy to learn that they are actively working to meet the everyday needs of veterans and their families while also anticipating their future needs.

To help veterans cope with hearing issues, we launched a veterans resource center earlier this year. We highlight various treatments for tinnitus that are being clinically tested as well as the promise of a cure for everyone with hearing loss and tinnitus, including veterans, through our Hearing Restoration Project consortium. You’ll find profiles of several veterans impacted by hearing loss and tinnitus while serving overseas, and you too can share your experience with us. We also have a page dedicated to resources where veterans can find additional hearing and health-related support. The upcoming summer issue of Hearing Health magazine will focus specifically on noise-induced hearing loss and tinnitus, highlighting these health issues in the military.

With providing continued support to our veteran community, I hope to learn that the suicide rates decrease in years to come.

Since these brave men and women are disproportionately impacted by hearing problems, which likely impacts many other aspects of their lives, the team at HHF wishes to honor all of our veterans this Memorial Day.

Help Mom Hear Better This Mother's Day

By Yishane Lee

Give the gift of hearing this Mother’s Day by taking your mom to get a hearing screening, and getting one yourself. One in five adults has a hearing loss—including adolescents—and the rate increases with age, with one in three seniors experiencing a hearing loss. But the average time between being diagnosed with a hearing loss and getting a hearing aid is seven years. That’s a long time to miss parts of conversations, misunderstand television dialogue, or be unable to fully enjoy a family gathering.

Now a new study puts more urgency into the need to check hearing. Researchers from the National Institute of Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD) found a link between hearing loss and an increased risk of depression and published the results in the journal JAMA Otolaryngology–Head & Neck Surgery. The scientists examined data for 18,000 people and found that a decline in hearing more than doubled the risk for depression when compared with those who said they had excellent hearing.

Women ages 70 and older were particularly susceptible to depression with even a moderate hearing loss of 35 to 50 decibels. And when every level of hearing loss was considered, 14.7 percent of women of all ages were more likely to feel sad and depressed, compared with 9 percent of men with any degree hearing loss. The link between depression and hearing loss remained even when the researchers controlled for factors such as vision problems.

The NIDCD study underscores the importance of getting your hearing checked and treated, and of getting treated for depression as well in the event of a diagnosed hearing loss. However, and unfortunately, the researchers also found that depression was higher among those using hearing aids.

Don’t leave your mom out of the conversation. Book a hearing screening for both of you in honor of Mother’s Day. She’ll thank you, we promise!

Learn more about finding the right hearing health professional and taking care of your ears from the Spring issue of Hearing Health magazine:

• How to Find the Right Hearing Healthcare Professional for You

• All in Stride: Getting a Hearing Aid Was a Straightforward Shift for This Mother of Two

• How to Get the Most Out of Your Hearing Aids

• Hearing Loss and Brain Size

Surprising Facts About the Five Senses

By Tamara Keeney, EarQ, Guest Blogger

I used to think I knew a lot about the five senses. When I’m writing, I often use a person’s senses and incorporate different hypothetical situations to connect with a reader. After all, isn’t that something that everyone has in common? After doing some research on how the sense of hearing actually works, I realized that I didn’t really know much outside of my own perception. My technical knowledge was certainly lacking, so I decided that a blog post on surprising facts about the five senses would be a fun way to share what I had learned. Here are some of the “sensible facts” that I learned:

• Do you remember all those times the doctor told you not to use cotton swabs to clean earwax from your ear canals? Not only is there a danger of puncturing the eardrum, but there are cilia in the canal that push earwax out naturally, so there’s no need to use cotton swabs!

• People have admired the ear for centuries; ear piercing is one of the earliest known forms of body modification.

• The only senses that are types of mechanosensation are hearing and touch.

• The catfish has somewhere around 100,000 taste buds.

• Grizzly bears are able to smell food from a whopping 18 miles away!

• The purpose of whiskers is still being researched and discovered, but among the known purposes are water current detection and texture discrimination.

• On average, by the time a person reaches age 20, half of his or her taste receptors are gone.

Our senses allow us to experience the world around us and understand it in ways that let us interact uniquely with people, nature, and ourselves. There are so many different ways that humans and animals use their senses. It truly helps me to appreciate what my senses provide for me.

The original full list of surprising facts about the senses can be found here.

10 Fun Easter Facts From Our Mascot, the Baby Chick

By Tara Guastella

As you’ve seen on our previous blog posts, a baby chicken may hold the key to a cure for hearing loss and tinnitus. Chickens have the remarkable ability to restore their own hearing naturally by regrowing inner ear hair cells that, once they are damaged, lead to hearing loss.

In fact, most animals other than mammals can regenerate these delicate cells, regaining their hearing after the cells are damaged by noise, age, or ototoxic drugs. This is the basis for the work of our Hearing Restoration Project, which is aiming to translate this remarkable capacity to humans.

So with Easter right around the corner we thought our mascot, the baby chick, would provide you with 10 fun Easter facts:

1) Easter is the celebration of the resurrection of Christ three days after his death. It is the oldest Christian holiday and the most important day of the church year.

2) Like rabbits and hares, eggs and chicks are often associated with Easter because, in pagan times, they were signs of fertility and new life.

3) After Halloween, Easter is the biggest candy-consuming holiday. About 120 million pounds of candy are bought each year, enough to fill four dump trucks.

4) Roughly 90 million chocolate bunnies, 91.4 billion eggs, and 700 million Peeps (sugar-coated marshmallow sweets) are produced each year in the United States.

5) About 76 percent of people eat the ears on chocolate bunnies first.

6) Half of the states in the United States have banned the practice of dyeing live chicks for Easter.

7) To help Americans in need, egg farmers across the country are donating more than 11 million eggs to food banks across the nation.

8) The White House hosts an Easter Egg Roll on its Front Lawn each year. This tradition was started by President Rutherford B. Hayes in 1878.

9) Like many holidays, Easter also has its own catchy tunes or carols such as “Here Comes Peter Cottontail” and “Easter Parade.”

10) Some 16 billion jelly beans are made specifically for Easter, which is enough to fill a plastic egg the size of a nine-story building.

If you celebrate Easter this coming Sunday and enjoy chick-shaped marshmallows or other fun Easter candy, remember that it is a little chick that is helping us to achieve the next great medical breakthrough: curing hearing loss and tinnitus.

Protect Your Ears (and Health) on St. Patrick's Day

By Yishane Lee

St. Patrick’s Day is a celebration of Ireland’s patron saint, who is credited with bringing Christianity to Ireland. (The three-leaf clover is allegedly how he explained the Holy Trinity.) These days, the holiday is, for better or worse, associated with heavy drinking, and at the risk of dampening the festivities, we thought we should remind readers of the dangers of consuming excessive alcohol and hearing loss.

German researchers reported in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research that lifelong alcohol consumption damages the brain. Specifically, it leads to brain shrinkage. (Alzheimer’s disease has also been linked to brain tissue shrinkage.)

The disturbing news was that social drinkers with a lighter consumption of alcohol were just at risk as people who drank heavily, although more research is needed. To do their study, the scientists measured brain currents called brainstem auditory evoked potentials (BAEPs) to assess central auditory pathways in a group of 38 men who were undergoing tumor removal or plastic surgery.

Separately, a British report in the journal BMC Ear, Nose, and Throat Disorders found that drinking alcohol blunts lower frequencies—which happen to be the ones you need the most to understand speech.

Combine this with the difficulty people with hearing loss have mastering the “cocktail-party effect”—the ability to discern one person’s speech in the presence of a lot of background noise—and no wonder large, celebratory gatherings involving alcohol are a minefield for people with hearing loss as well as for those trying to protect their hearing. In other words, if you’re on your third or fourth Guinness and can’t understand the Irish bloke shouting about shamrocks (foreign accents are tricky, too!) in a crowded pub, have a tall glass of water next round.

There are yet more risks. Drinking alcohol also causes your blood vessels to expand. This puts you at risk for tinnitus. However, there has also been a hearing-protective effect ascribed to drinking red wine (or eating red grapes). This is due to the presence of resveratrol, a substance found in the skins of red grapes.

The bottom line? There’s no reason not to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day with a pint of Guinness, but as the saying goes, everything in moderation.