All digital hearing aids are programmable. Some analogue hearing aids have programmable options too.

What does programmable mean?

It means that an audiologist can modify a hearing aid’s settings for your personal hearing loss – it also means that they can set the aid up so that you can hear the sounds that you want to hear in your everyday environments.

There will default options for common situations such as: at home, at a party, at the theatre, listening to music, and so on. You can ask your audiologist to modify these to suit your needs.

What is a programme?

Hearing aids are worn in many different environments, some are quiet, some are very noisy, some have lots of people talking to you from many directions at once, etc. You want your hearing aid to be able to let you hear well in all of these situations and being able to do that is hard.

To give you the best chance to hear in all situations, digital hearing aids have a number of programmes (sometimes called settings or defaults) that you can select yourself while you are wearing your aid. So, you might ask your audiologist to install the music programme, the party programme and a telephone programme on your aid – its up to you to decide which programmes best fit your lifestyle.

Selecting programmes

How you select a programme varies from aid to aid – many have a small button on the shell, some have a pocket-size remote control, some let you use your mobile phone and other have touch sensors.

In most cases a hearing aid will switch automatically to its telephone setting when you put the phone’s receiver to your ear.

Do I need all these different programmes?

That’s up to you! Personally, 99% of the time I use my hearing aids on the default setting – I wore analogue hearing aids for many years and am used to having the same sounds all the time, so I keep the same programme on.

If you work in a library and party a lot at night then you will probably find you can hear much better with a programme for the quiet library and another for the noisy party.

Modern aids have the ability to be configured exactly how you want them.

Lip reading is a critical means of communication for many deaf people, but it has a drawback: Certain consonants (for example, p and b) can be nearly impossible to distinguish by sight alone.

Tactile devices, which translate sound waves into vibrations that can be felt by the skin, can help overcome that obstacle by conveying nuances of speech that can’t be gleaned from lip reading.

Researchers in MIT’s Sensory Communication Group are working on a new generation of such devices, which could be an important tool for deaf people who rely on lip reading and can’t use or can’t afford cochlear implants. The cost of the device and the surgery make cochlear implants prohibitive for many people, especially in developing countries.

“Most deaf people will not have access to that technology in our lifetime,” said Ted Moallem, a graduate student working on the project. “Tactile devices can be several orders of magnitude cheaper than cochlear implants.”

Moallem and Charlotte Reed, senior research scientist in MIT’s Research Laboratory of Electronics and leader of the project, say the software they are developing could be compatible with current smart phones, allowing such devices to be transformed into unobtrusive tactile aids for the deaf.

“Anyone who has a smart phone already has much of what they would need to run the program,” including a microphone, digital signal-processing capability, and a rudimentary vibration system, says Moallem.

Tactile devices translate sound waves into vibrations that allow the user to distinguish between vibratory patterns associated with different sound frequencies. The MIT researchers are testing devices that have at least two vibration ranges, one for high-frequency sounds and one for low-frequency sounds.

Read the original article in full on the MIT website.

Deaf seven-year-old Evie Crook has a new best friend – a specially trained hearing dog.

Evie is the youngest person to get an assistance dog and her confidence is starting to skyrocket. Since getting Gem she is sleeping in her own bed for the first time and is much more chatty, her parents say. “I love Gem more than 10 million bags of sugar!,” the youngster told Sky News. Evie is severely deaf, and is one of 12 children taking part in a trial organised by the Hearing Dogs for Deaf People charity. Previously only deaf people over the age of 18 have been allowed to work with hearing dogs.

Evie, who lives in Derbyshire with mum Becky, dad Dave, and big sister Maddy, is the only one in her family with hearing difficulties. It is a condition that can sometimes leave her feeling isolated, and was leading to more serious behavioural problems. She suffered sleep traumas and would often wander off when in public. But her family say that since Evie was paired up with Gem all their lives have changed immeasurably. Becky says: “Gem trots round everywhere after Evie, it’s almost like she’s checking where she’s going, which I know Evie is finding reassuring.”

Read full article on Sky News.

Congratulations to Paul from Charlottetown, Canada! He wins a year’s supply of hearing aid batteries.

His batteries are now winging their way across the Atlantic thanks to those good people at Royal Mail.

Congratulations, Paul!

By tweaking a system in the ear that limits how much sound is heard, a global team of researchers has discovered one alteration that shows that the ability of the ear to turn itself down contributes to protecting against permanent hearing loss. The report appears this week inPLoS Biology.

“There’s some uncertainty in the field about what this sound-limiting system is used for,” says Paul Fuchs, PhD, an author on the paper and professor of otolaryngology-head and neck surgery and co-director of the Center for Sensory Biology at the Institute for Basic Biomedical Sciences at Johns Hopkins. “Now we’ve definitively shown that this system functions in part to prevent acoustic trauma.”

To get a better handle on this sound-limiting system in the ear, the research team built on previous findings in the field and focused their efforts on the nAChR protein found on so-called sensory hair cells in the ear. Nerve cells from the brain release signals that are picked up by nAChR and turn down these sensory hair cells.

The team genetically altered a single building block in the nAChR protein and tested mice for their ability to hear. “This point mutation was designed to produce a so-called gain of function in which the inhibitory effect of ACh should be greater than normal,” says Fuchs.

The altered mice were less able to hear soft sounds than normal mice, showing that the genetic alteration made in the nAChR protein did indeed further “turn down” the ear. The team then asked if the alteration in nAChR, and therefore the improved sound-blocking ability of these altered mice, also could protect from sound damage.

The team blasted 100-decibel sound at mice and again measured their ability to hear. “One hundred decibels, for me, is painfully loud, and conversation is impossible,” says Fuchs. “But sound levels in night clubs or rock concerts can be that high, and extended exposure to sound at that volume can cause hearing loss.”

They found that mice with the altered, gain-of-function nAChR suffered less permanent hearing damage compared to normal mice. “We think this pathway could be a therapeutic target for protecting from sound damage,” says Fuchs. “So far, there is little or no specific pharmacology of hearing. We’re still learning how the inner ear works. The encouraging news is that molecular mechanisms like the hair cell’s nAChR frequently involve unique gene products, so there is a real chance of finding ear-specific drugs in the future.”

Until then, Fuchs suggests limiting time spent at rock concerts, and wearing earplugs, to protect your hearing.

Source: Medical News Today

Pompey football legend Alan Knight spent years struggling to hear conversations. But now hearing aids have transformed his life and he is campaigning to change attitudes to deafness.

‘That John Westwood has got a lot to answer for,’ smiles Knight, recalling the hundreds of times he would be subjected to the loud ringing bell of the club’s noisiest supporter.

But losing his hearing was devastating for the former goalkeeper. He felt cut off, unable to join in conversations and constantly had to ask people to repeat themselves.

Alan, now 48, was driving on a motorway in America three years ago when he first noticed problems in his left ear.

‘It popped like when you’re flying on a plane and then there was just this hissing sort of sound,’ he recalls.

When the problem was still there a few days later, Alan, who was in the States working as a coach for Dallas in the US football league, went to see his team’s doctor.

He was told the most likely cause was an ear infection and given a three-day course of antibiotics.

But three weeks later, at the end of the American football season, he was back in England and still experiencing the problem.

‘I tried all sorts of ear wax controlling products and things. I went to see the doctor several times he told me my ears might be blocked,’ he says.

Although Alan didn’t know it, his ears were deteriorating fast. He began to struggle with a 75 per cent loss of hearing in his left ear and a reduced ability to pick up high frequencies in the other.

As a result, his social life took a huge knock.

‘At first it became a bit of an ongoing joke with people around me saying I had gone deaf. I was relatively young at the time of it happening, in my mid-40s, so obviously I wasn’t aware that was actually what was going on.

‘After a while it was wearing thin with people that I was constantly asking them to repeat themselves over and over,’ says Alan.
‘In noisy areas or rooms I just couldn’t hear people. I felt excluded and I became a bit withdrawn.’

Six months later, when his ears had still not improved, Alan went back to his GP and was put on a waiting list to see an ear, nose and throat specialist at Queen Alexandra Hospital in Cosham.

When he got his appointment a few months later, he was given an MRI scan and received a huge blow.

‘The consultant told me my nerve endings, the hairs on my inner ear, were dead,’ he says.

He had suffered permanent hearing loss – and even worse, he was told it could have been completely avoidable.

Alan had suffered Sudden Sensorineural Hearing Loss (SSHL) in his left ear, treatable if caught in the first two weeks.

‘The consultant said if it had been picked up straight away, I could have been given steroids which may have helped save my hearing,’ Alan says.

‘It made me very angry, the idea that I had missed the one chance I had to hold on to my hearing.’

SSHL occurs when the hair cells in the inner ear, known as cochlea, die. But the causes of the condition, which affects around 6,000 people a year, are known in only around 15 per cent of cases.

Alan looks back and wonders if his long football career could have been partly to blame. He says: ‘I feel some of it may have been caused through playing football, getting kicks to the head and loud crowds could have damaged my ears over time.’

Whatever the cause, Alan’s life has been changed forever. But he now wants to help change social attitudes towards deafness. By telling his story, he hopes to tackle what he sees as an ongoing stigma and ignorance surrounding deafness.

‘I think there is a stigma about having impaired hearing,’ he says.
‘It seems these days, no-one has a problem wearing glasses. When people go to the opticians and buy designer glasses, it’s seen as a cool thing. But wearing a hearing aid seems to just be associated with older people in their 70s or 80s.

‘People will go and have their eyes tested every couple of years, I think people should go and get their ears tested as well.’

In May, Alan went to hearing specialists Amplifon in Portsmouth, where he was fitted with two digital hearing aids, including a small one in his right ear programmed to amplify only high-frequency sounds.
The cost was around £3,500 for the pair, but since each is tuned to match the precise pattern of his hearing loss, Alan says he has regained his confidence.

‘When I got an NHS hearing aid, I was amazed how much it changed things. It improved my hearing a great deal. But there were a few problems, I didn’t clean it properly and got a bad ear infection from not taking it out often enough.

‘At first I was very cautious about having to wear hearing aids, but they are much more cosmetically favourable these days.

‘In the end, I was not particularly bothered what it looked like, I just wanted to hear better.’

Looking back over the last three years since that day his ear popped on the freeway, Alan says: ‘It’s not a nice thing to happen, but it’s better now, I should have got it sorted sooner. Now I know there’s so much available out there in the way of hearing devices.’

He adds: ‘I know it sounds cheesy, but if I can get across to just one person who’s losing their hearing to go and get their ears checked and save their hearing, then I would be very happy.’

Source: The Deaf Blog and Portsmouth.co.uk

A TEENAGER is fighting to prove that the MMR vaccine made her deaf.

Katie Stephen, 16, fell ill with a fever 10 days after being injected with an early form of the immunisation as a toddler in 1991.

Parents Wendy and Alistair believe the vaccine, which included a strain of mumps, was responsible for their daughter losing the hearing in her left ear.

They also believe that the Government knew of health risks surrounding the vaccine, but carried on using it.

More recent forms of the vaccine have been at the centre of a separate row over alleged links to autism.

Katie, from Stonehaven, Kincardineshire, said: “I feel quite angry when I think about it. It shouldn’t have happened to me.”

Mum Wendy added: “I can’t say to Katie ‘This was an accident, you were unfortunate’, because I feel the people who authorised this vaccination knew that someone’s child would be damaged.

“It is time someone took the blame.”

The Stephens are one of a number of families seeking compensation from the vaccine makers Smith Kline and French Laboratories.

The court battle, launched in the 1990s, is due to be called again later this month at the Royal Courts of Justice in London.

Originally from –>The Daily Record.

Picture the scene: You are in an audiologists office, you’ve had a hearing test and you need to decide which hearing aid you are going to buy. You’ve saved up for a long time to get some money together for an aid because you really need to hear better. It’s a lot of money. It’s a big decision and you can’t afford to not make the right one.

Based on your test results your audiologist suggests a few different aids that would suit you. The three aids being recommended have all had really positive feedback from previous customers.

You’ve got a lot of aids to pick from but three are being suggested. One’s cheap and well within your budget, one is just under your budget and one is slightly over. Which do you go for? Do you stretch your budget that little bit? How much better would you hear if you stretched your budget?

The audiologist has already warned you that it takes time to get used to new hearing aids, your brain needs to adjust to the new sounds and you’re a first time wearer so it’s a big deal. You get a three month trial period for your new aids after you’ve paid for them.

Which aids are you gonna pick?

Now you’re faced with an impossible choice. You ask the audiologist how much better you would hear if you bought the most expensive one and all he can say is, “well, it’s got a better noise-reduction algorithm and more channels so it’s going to be better”. Yes, but how much better? Is it worth my money better?

So, you decide to pick the cheapest aid because money is tight and there’s a bunch of other stuff you could be spending it on. Add to that the fact that you are a bit uneasy about handing over a large sum of money for something you are really not sure about.

You go through your trial period and you are reasonably happy with the results, you hear a lot more than you used to. But you have problems getting used to some sounds and some things sound very unusual, there’s also some stuff you still can’t hear as well as you would like.

Do you trade the aids back in and go for the more expensive ones? How much better would they be?

I read a couple of very interesting articles on Hearing Review today: It’s Not Immoral to Increase Hearing Aid Prices in an Inelastic Market and Seven Rules for Thinking About Hearing Aid Pricing.

The first article talks about how a reduction in hearing aid prices does not lead to more people buying them, or, to quote directly from the article, “This means that changes in price will have little impact relative to the number of potential hearing aid users who enter your practice“. So, when we decide we want/need a hearing aid we are going to see an audiologist regardless of their prices. This article is purely from a dispensers point of view and is focused on profit margins, which is fair enough, businesses are run to make a profit after all.

Hearing aids may be an inelastic according to the studies mentioned in the article (inelastic just means prices aren’t affecting sales) but the price difference being quoted are a few hundred dollars taken off a $3000 hearing aid. They are saying that if they reduce the price from $3000 to $2700 then the sales don’t shoot up – no surprise at all because what was a hugely expensive purchase is still a hugely expensive purchase.

What I don’t like about this article is the assumption that it is OK to charge top-dollar to the people who have come into a practice. Someone attending a practice has decided that their hearing loss is affecting their quality of life enough to get something done about it – increasing the price of their purchase just because your patient numbers are low is not doing the patients you do have any favours at all.

Whereas differing hearing aid prices may not change the number of patients coming into practices it certainly will be effecting the look of total shock on the faces of those patients who have when they are told how much it will cost for them to hear.

The second article follows the same lines and talks about how practices should stress their value to patients in terms of quality hearing aids and services rather than driving down prices. I’ve written before about how we wrongly equate the quality of something to its price. The important thing to remember is that most of what you are paying for when buying a hearing aid is the service that comes with it, the actual hearing aid itself doesn’t cost much to produce. When comparing the price and value of one practice against the other you are really comparing the audiologists and how much their time is worth, not the hearing aids themselves.

I just cannot see how significantly lowering the prices of hearing aids to an affordable level would not increase sales. It may not increase profits but it would certainly increase sales and that may well be the problem!

2008 was a productive year in terms of hearing research. Results from stem-cell and gene research may lead to new treatment options for hearing impairment.

Stem-cell and gene research contributed new knowledge about the ear and hearing in 2008, opening opportunities for the development of new treatment options for hearing impaired people in the future.

Genes and cells
Gene mutations causing various kinds of hearing loss were identified. We now know that the SLC17A8 gene mutation causes one kind of hereditary hearing loss and the TGBF1 gene is the culprit in otosclerosis.

Other research investigated the feasibility of regenerating hearing by treatment with embryonic stem-cells. These efforts scored initial successes. In 2008, a team of researchers achieved the first generation ever of the kind of hear cells that are central to the processing of sound in the inner ear and crucial to hearing. The cells were grown in mouse embryos.

Another team of researchers successfully modified hearing stem-cells in the embryonic stage, so they are directed to the area of the inner ear where they become part of the tissue they are supposed to repair.

Future treatments
The insights gained by the scientists are the first steps on the way to potential treatments of genetically conditioned hearing loss or hearing loss caused by cell damage.

The scientists caution, however, that actual gene or stem-cell therapy for the treatment of hearing loss is not imminent. Gene and stem-cell therapy is a new area of research with treatment techniques yet to be discovered or developed.

But the knowledge about hearing loss is increasing and advances in the general technological standard is resulting in improvements in hearing aids and other assistive devices for people with hearing impairment. And the encouraging outlook for 2009 is for further discoveries in the exiting new areas of hearing research.

Source: http://www.hear-it.org