The Scripps Research Institute is reporting that scientists there have illuminated the action of harmonin, a protein which is involved in the mechanics of hearing. The finding reportedly sheds new light on the workings of mechanotransduction, the process by which cells convert mechanical stimuli into electrical activity. Defects in mechanotransduction genes can cause devastating diseases, such as Usher’s syndrome, which is characterized by deafness, gradual vision loss, and kidney disease, which can lead to kidney failure.

The research, led by Scripps Research Professor Ulrich Mueller, was published in the May 14, 2009, issue of the journal Neuron.

“We’re constantly confronted with mechanical signals of many different kinds and we have sensors all over our bodies that respond to those signals,” Mueller says. “For example, mechanosensors in the muscles control posture, while those in skin allow us to feel touch. Though many of our other senses, such as taste and smell, are well understood, mechanosensory perception is a world about which we know next to nothing.”

The complete press release is –>available here.

Source: The Hearing Review.

Have you bought a hearing aid online? If so, I’d love to know your experiences. Did it meet your expectations? Was it good value for money? Have you had to have it re-programmed or checked since you bought it?

Hearing aids that are sold online tend to be for mild to moderate hearing losses and so I can’t try them out myself. If you have bought online and can spare a couple of minutes to let me know what you think then please do.

I wont publish your name or anything your write if you don’t want me to. Basically, I want to write a bit about buying online versus buying on the high-street but wanted to get some first-hand reports first.

Thanks!

We signed the whole hour ride back, much to our passengers, and our surprise. When she left for a moment to grab her phone so we could exchange numbers, that is when I realized how differently people saw our conversation.

Excellent article Lauren Vujovich on the general public’s perception of deafness. Read it here.

This is a guest article by Daniel Taft.

Daniel Taft is an engineer with a PhD in cochlear implant sound processing from the University of Melbourne and the Bionic Ear Institute. He is the Chief Technology Officer for Blamey & Saunders Hearing, a company that offers hearing aids scientifically designed to order online and adjust at home.

Step 1 – Choose The Hearing Aids.

You will need to buy hearing aids that you can adjust at home, from a reputable dispenser. The company I work for, Australia Hears, offers hearing aids that are specially designed to adjust yourself. It’s easy to do, and our clients get great results.

In general, we recommend choosing a hearing aid with five important technologies:

• Multiple frequency channels so that you can adjust each frequency independently of the others. We use 32 channels.
• An adaptive directional microphone that automatically becomes directional in noisy situations so that you don’t have to change programs. This makes a drastic improvement to quality of speech in noisy environments.
• An open fit hearing aid offers greater comfort and does not require a custom ear mould.
• A good feedback canceller. This allows greater amplification without whistling and is essential for an open fit device.
• A low delay processor. This reduces the echo perceived from a time delay between air conducted sound and amplified sound.

Step 2 – Install The Software.

Obtain the fitting system (usually software and cables) from the manufacturer. Not all manufacturers offer this, and not all hearing aids are easy to adjust.

Step 3 – Adjust At Home.

Your home is a familiar environment in which to adjust your hearing aids, so that everyday sounds are exactly the way you want. Feel free to listen to your radio and TV while you do this. Don’t be surprised if the fridge sounds louder.

Connect the hearing aids to your computer and adjust the settings to make things sound just the way you like. This saves you time and money too. After all, you know your own ears best.

Here’s what our IHearYou hearing aid software looks like. You can take as much or as little control as you wish, and Australia Hears offers online help and support if you need it. Like all good software, it is designed by experts to make a sophisticated task easy for others.

1. Enter your audiogram, or send it to us and we will enter if for you. This step is optional (here’s why).
2. Balance the loudness across frequencies, using special sounds generated by the hearing aid. This compensates for your individual hearing levels.
3. Adjust the overall volume, listening to real sounds though the hearing aid. This should include your own voice, and another person’s voice.
4. That’s all. Test it out in the real world, and return to fine tune if necessary. Australia Hears software includes a questionnaire and other intuitive processes to make this easy.

y hearing loss was first noticed when I was about 5 years old and I’ve been wearing hearing aids more or less since then. I didn’t wear aids much in my early-mid teens as I was too worried about looking cool – since the age of 19 o so I haven’t gone a single day without wearing them, I’m 37 now.

I also have tinnitus in my right ear. I remember having it around my late teens and early twenties but then it went away completely for about 7-12 years but has returned and I still have it now. I have a constant tone, fairly high-pitch, it’s difficult to describe what it sounds like but if you go to this page and play the sound on there, it’s kinda like that but not exactly.

Luckily for me my tinnitus has never bothered me that much, it’s never annoying and it never stops me from getting to sleep or concentrating. Fingers crossed it stays that way.

I can control it (a bit)

My tinnitus gets worse when I think about it. When I started writing this it got worse, when I browse the web for information on tinnitus it gets worse. The opposite doesn’t work though, I can’t consciously make it sound quieter or go away. Seems like it is my brain making the unwanted noise, not my ears, possibly it is trying to compensate for the lack of real sounds coming in?

My hearing aids help (a lot)

Our brains naturally pick out the loudest sounds, so when I wear my hearing aids the real sounds drown out the tinnitus, so much so that I don’t notice it at all for most of the day. It’s only during very quiet spells when it starts to become noticeable again.

Being tired doesn’t help

My tinnitus definitely gets worse when I am tired.

Caffeine?

I drink a lot of tea and coffee, I love the stuff. Some studies have linked excessive caffeine use to tinnitus and others have cast doubt on it. I’m sticking with my tasty hot beverages for now.

Tinnitus is a bit of a kick in the teeth: we can’t hear much of the real sounds that we want to hear and to add to that our brains have decided to make up and play to us some unwanted noise. Do you have tinnitus? How much does it bother you and how do you deal with it?

Living with a hearing loss is like visiting a foreign country and not being able to speak the language.

This is from Science Daily:

Hearing aids and cochlear implants act as tiny amplifiers so the deaf and hard-of-hearing can make sense of voices and music. Unfortunately, these devices also amplify background sound, so they’re less effective in a noisy environment like a busy workplace or café.

But help is on the way. Prof. Miriam Furst-Yust of Tel Aviv University’s School of Electrical Engineering has developed a new software application named “Clearcall” for cochlear implants and hearing aids which improves speech recognition for the hard-of-hearing by up to 50%.

“Hearing-impaired people have a real problem understanding speech,” says Prof. Furst-Yust. “Their devices may be useful in a quiet room, but once the background noise levels ramp up, the devices become less useful. Our algorithm helps filter out irrelevant noise so they can better understand the voices of their friends and family.”

Based on a cochlear model that she devised, the new patented technology is now being developed to improve the capabilities of existing cochlear implants and digital hearing aids. Adding Clearcall to current technology is quite straightforward, says Prof. Furst-Yust, and requires only add-on software for existing devices.

But help is on the way. Prof. Miriam Furst-Yust of Tel Aviv University’s School of Electrical Engineering has developed a new software application named “Clearcall” for cochlear implants and hearing aids which improves speech recognition for the hard-of-hearing by up to 50%.

“Hearing-impaired people have a real problem understanding speech,” says Prof. Furst-Yust. “Their devices may be useful in a quiet room, but once the background noise levels ramp up, the devices become less useful. Our algorithm helps filter out irrelevant noise so they can better understand the voices of their friends and family.”

Based on a cochlear model that she devised, the new patented technology is now being developed to improve the capabilities of existing cochlear implants and digital hearing aids. Adding Clearcall to current technology is quite straightforward, says Prof. Furst-Yust, and requires only add-on software for existing devices.

Read the full article on Science Daily.

Envoy Medical’s Esteem is the world’s first implantable hearing aid. It doesn’t use a microphone and a speaker like a traditional hearing aid. There is nothing at all in your ear, the aid is completely internal and is therefore invisible.

The Esteem is not a cochlear implant. A CI is fitted to those with profound hearing loss and is fitted in the inner ear whereas the Esteem is for those with severe (or less) hearing loss and is fitted in the middle ear. It seems to consist of a number of small pieces rather than just being a single device, with each being fitted to different parts of the middle ear.

The device received FDA approval earlier this year.

Apparently you can swim with it in. It has an off switch and the battery lasts for up to 4 years. Sounds cool but it’ll set you back somewhere in the region of $30,000. Some things to note before you splash your hard-earned, the Envoy site has some warning and precautions on it: you should avoid contact sports and high pressure and you can’t have an MRI – full list here.

Here’s an old, but interesting, thread on AllDeaf with posts from some people who have tried it out and Hearing Mojo has a good piece on it too.

What do you think? Would you consider an implant and go under the knife to get better hearing?

Binaural: “Having or relating to two ears”

Monaural: “Of, relating to, or designating sound reception by one ear”

If you have a binaural hearing loss then you have a problem in both of your ears – if you have Monaural then it’s only one.

If you do have a binaural loss then it is very important that you wear hearing aids in both ears. Don’t be tempted to buy only one – in my opinion it would be better two buy two cheaper hearing aids than it would be to buy one expensive one. We use both of our ears to hear and if you wear only one hearing aid you will have big problems trying to locate the source of sounds and everything will sound very uneven. You won’t hear half as well with one aid, you’ll hear less.

Clive Anderson is backing a charity campaign calling for people to donate their unwanted hearing aids, which will be recycled for deaf children in developing countries.

Charity Sound Seekers, which aims to improve the lives of deaf children, has joined forces with Specsavers hearing centres for the appeal. More than 300 hearing centres across the country will host fundraising activities and collect unwanted hearing aids for the charity.

TV and radio presenter Clive said: “The partnership between Specsavers and Sound Seekers is, in every sense, a great way to help deaf children in the developing world. I’m pleased to support it, and hope you can as well.”

Gary Williams, chief executive of Sound Seekers, said: “In the countries we work in, fewer than one in 40 people who could benefit from a hearing aid have one.

“Every single donated hearing aid counts, so we are very grateful to Specsavers for their support.”

Collection bins for donated hearing aids are now permanently located inside all Specsavers hearing centres. It follows the success of a similar scheme for unwanted glasses, already in place with UK charity Vision Aid Overseas (VAO). Since 2003 a quarter of a million glasses have been collected and recycled by Specsavers optical stores for VAO, for use in developing countries.

Richard Holmes, marketing director of Specsavers said: “Sound Seekers provides essential support for children in countries where audiology services are scarce.

“Specsavers stores offer an ideal platform from which to request recycled hearing aids and host fundraising activities for the charity. We are delighted we can offer this level of support to such a worthwhile cause.”

Known in full as Sound Seekers – The Commonwealth Society for the Deaf, the charity works to improve the lives of deaf children and children suffering from ear disease in the developing countries of the Commonwealth by providing specialist equipment, training and support.

For further information on Sound Seekers, please visit www.sound-seekers.org.uk.