Patients with cochlear implants may want to steer clear of certain magnetic imaging devices, such as 3T MRI machines, because the machines can demagnetize the patient’s implant, according to new research published in the December 2008 issue of Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery.

The study, conducted by a team of German reasearchers from the International Neuroscience Institute, Hannover, and the Medical University of Hannover, and American researchers from Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tenn,tested several cochlear device magnets on a 3T MRI scanner with active shielding at a variety of angles (0º, 80º, 90º, 100º, 110º, and 180º). The researchers discovered that during routine use of 3T MRI machines at angles above 80º, an unacceptable level of demagnetization was reached, causing permanent damage to devices with non-removable magnets, and creating the potential of exposing patients to undesirable magnetic forces.

3T MRI scanners are the next generation of MRI scanners and are significantly more powerful than 1.5T MRI scanners.

As a result of their findings, the study authors recommend that MRI scans on patients with cochlear implants should be performed using a 3T MRI machine only if a 1.5T machine is not available, and if the benefits of the scan far outweigh the risk of cochlear implant demagnetization.

Source: American Academy of Otolaryngology — Head and Neck Surgery

Google announced a few weeks ago that they have added the ability to auto-caption YouTube videos. That means that when the project is complete we will be able to have captions on any YouTube video whether the original uploader of the video added captions or not. Pretty damn awesome and it answers this question pretty conclusively!

The ability for people to add captions manually when they upload their videos has been around to many years. But the process of adding captions was too much for most people to bother with and hardly any videos on YouTube today have manually added captions.

Currently, auto captioning (Auto-Caps) is not available for all videos, it is still in testing and is only available on a selection of YouTube’s content. Here’s a Google video 

I haven’t written much on here lately, just had a look and I’ve written 4 posts in the last 3 months, surprisingly that’s not due to laziness; I have in fact been beavering away on a new website. And it’s now finished.

Well, it’s finished in that it’s ready for release but I have a lot of more ideas planned for it in the future. The site is at http://www.earmeter.com. It’s a patient-engagement tool for audiologists and hearing aid vendors, the idea is to make it easier to get information and guidance to patients during their hearing aid trials and to also be able to collect daily updates from the patient about how they are getting on with their new aids.

I’m excited about it, think it’s something that could help everyone, patients and sellers. I’m going to write a proper post about it but I thought I’d just let you know why I haven’t been posting much lately.

Would love to know your thoughts on Earmeter, good or bad, bring it on.

I see a lot of adverts in the newspapers and on the TV for glasses. Every day there are full-page adverts in the papers and prime-time adverts on the big TV channels. Everyone is doing “Buy one get one free” offers or “Designer frames for free” etc etc. Glasses are cool, the designer frames are expensive, celebrities endorse them.

According to the Royal National Institute For The Blind there are two million blind or partially sighted people in the UK. This number does seem very low to me but that’s the only figure I could find.

Compare that two million to the estimated nine million deaf and hard of hearing people in the UK.

Where are all the hearing aid adverts? Interestingly we have two big-name chains over here who sell both glasses and hearing aids, Boots and Specsavers. Both chains have regular glasses adverts but I can’t recall seeing a hearing aid advert from either, except for signs in their shop window.

Why aren’t hearing aids advertised on prime-time television? Do those nine million people even know where to go to buy a hearing aid? We are starting to see some celebrities backing campaigns to raise awareness of hearing damage – I’d like to see an A-lister advertising the latest digital model on Saturday evening TV. Maybe if adverts started showing hearing aids as being cool then maybe more people would use them and the remaining stigma would disappear. Prices would come down too as the number of units being sold went up and competition increased.

It wasn’t that long ago that glasses where painfully un-cool, you could only buy horrible looking thick lenses with unattractive frames. Now it’s all about the look and some people even wear them when they don’t need to. With some advertising hearing aids could get there too.

Hearing aids for as many as 10 million Americans living with untreated hearing loss could soon become a reality if Congress acts, says Stephen Hansbrough, CEO of HearUSA, who is urging passage of the tax credit legislation that would make hearing aids significantly more affordable.

Although almost all of the 36 million Americans with hearing loss could be helped by hearing aids, 25% currently use them, the Better Hearing Institute (BHI) reports, citing affordability as the prime reason most go without hearing care and noting that 70% of all hearing aid purchases are not supported by insurance.

“Hearing loss is a critical quality of life and health issue and we are committed to seeing hearing care recognized as a medical necessity,” says Hansbrough. “HearUSA is supportive of measures that make hearing care more affordable and accessible and that increase public awareness of the scope and impact of hearing loss.”

He said that 10 million of the 27 million Americans with untreated hearing loss would be likely to purchase hearing aids if $500 tax credits were available, according to a nationwide survey conducted by the BHI.

Both the Senate’s version (S 109) and House’s version (HR 1646) of the Hearing Aid Tax Credit Act would provide for a tax credit of up to $500 for each hearing aid once every 5 years. The House measure would apply to taxpayers 55 or older and for those purchasing hearing aids for a dependent, while the Senate version would have no age restriction.

Hansbrough said the Hearing Aid Tax Credit is supported by leading health care and advocacy organizations, including the BHI, the Hearing Loss Association of America, the American Academy of Audiology, and AARP.

To learn more about the Hearing Aid Tax Credit bills, visit www.hearingaidtaxcredit.org.

SOURCE: HearUSA via Hearing Review

From a Sonova press release:

ZURICH (Dow Jones)– Swiss hearing aid maker Sonova Holdings AG (SOON.VX) said Monday it is buying U.S.-based Advanced Bionics Corporation for $489 million, to enter the cochlear implant systems market where the company sees future growth rates between 10% and 15% per year.

“With this transaction Sonova adds a new source of sustainable business growth and enhances its position as the leading provider of hearing healthcare solutions,” Chief Executive Valentin Chapero said in a statement.

Studies have shown that humans’ capacity to hear affects the quality of our relationships and mental health, regulates physiology and can impact stress and income levels. Explore the link between healthy hearing and overall well-being and the effects health issues such as diabetes, hypertension and medication can have on the delicate structures of hearing. Discover new strategies to preserve and improve hearing for life.

The talk is on Tuesday, November 17, 2009 6:30PM at 92nd Street Y, 1395 Lexington Avenue, New York, NY 10128.

You can register here.

How well my day goes is more or less governed by how well I am hearing. I’ve written before that subtle changes in how much I can hear happen day-to-day.

If I’m hearing well then I am full of confidence, happy and outgoing. I’m starting conversations, joining in group conversation, I’m out and about and enjoying the day. I’m talking to people I don’t know when I’m out walking the dog. I’m answering the telephone without a second thought. I’m pleased to see people. I can go anywhere and achieve anything, the world is my oyster.

If I’m not hearing well then my attitude is completely different. I’m not seizing the day, it’s passing me by. I’m moody and depressed, not rude but I’m doing everything to avoid conversation. Instead of joining in groups I’m on the sidelines, looking bored. I’m making excuses to get away. No, I don’t want to go for coffee, thanks. The telephone is my enemy. I know the people who talk quietly so I’m giving them a wide berth. I feel useless, resentful and alone on these days.

I visited the audiologist yesterday. I’ve not been hearing much at all at work for a few months now and I’ve been putting off and putting off going to the audiologist; not for any particular reason other than I was being lazy and I was “doing OK, hearing bits of what was said and filling in the gaps, just scraping along”. Finally, I realised I was missing too much and I needed to sort it out.

So, visited my Aud yesterday, explained that I was hearing OK at home but terribly at work. A one-hour consultation later and I came away with three new programmes on my hearing aid; one for home, one for work and one for listening to far-away voices in large meetings, seminars and situations like that.

Went to work today, tried out my at-work programme and instantly realised that I’ve been putting myself under unnecessary strain the last few months by being lazy and not seeing the Aud. Conversation was just so much easier today, I didn’t have to concentrate hard to follow what someone was saying, they weren’t mumbling, they were talking in gloriously clear and understandable voices!

Lesson learned. Don’t put off visiting your Audiologist.

There are some manual captioning services around, captvids.com is one, that do manual captioning of videos. That’s cool but I’m wondering if it’s possible to do automatic captioning?

There’s a lot of speech recognition software around, Dragon Naturally Speaking for example, that do an amazing job. It’s probably 7 or 8 years since I’ve used a voice recognition system and even back then they were near perfect – they can only have gotten better since then.

The thing with speech recognition software that wouldn’t lend itself to captioning is that you have to train them. You are asked to say certain words and sentences and the software records your voice and learns what you sound like. It then uses what it learns to make such a good job of turning voice into text.

Does anyone know if there’s anything out there (website or PC software) that captions videos automatically for you?

I’m looking into the possibility of trying to write something to do this and I don’t want to bother if it’s already been done. I think it would be possible to write something that listens to a video playing through once and produces some text. That text is not going to be perfect because there has been no learning but it might be good enough to produce captions that are usable.