Shareholders of Sonic Innovations Inc, Salt Lake City, overwhelmingly approved the renaming of Sonic Innovations Inc to Otix Global Inc at the company’s recent annual shareholder meeting. The name and ticker symbol change have already been adopted.

“The move is designed to create a holding company that will allow the Sonic Innovations’ brand and Sonic’s other brands to operate independently from each other,” said Sam Westover, the company’s chairman and CEO, in a statement released by the company. He says Sonic Innovations will continue as a company and brand developing and distributing hearing instruments and services, and Otix will serve as the parent company for Sonic and its other legal entities.

Westover says that the company renaming will not have an impact on Sonic stock issued prior to the name and ticker symbol change—which will remain under the Sonic name—but stock purchases made after June 15 will be issued under the name Otix Global Inc. All stock will then be traded in the market under the OTIX ticker symbol on NASDAQ, he says.

“Sonic Innovations has become much more than a developer and manufacturer of hearing instruments, and it is now necessary to create a distinction between the Sonic Innovations hearing instrument brand and the company’s various other brands,” Westover said in the statement. “This move allows each entity to operate independently in the marketplace, which we believe will be beneficial to Sonic’s customers, end users, and investors.”

Westover says customers Sonic customers will not see any change in the products or services they currently receive. “The Sonic brand will continue as it currently exists,” he noted. “If you deal with Sonic Innovations now, you will continue to deal with Sonic Innovations in the future. Nothing will change.”

If you are trialling a new hearing aid and you can’t decide whether to keep it then try this:

Wear your new hearing aid(s) for a week. Wear them in all the environments you are normally in – at home, at work, at a party, in the street, etc.

After one week of that switch back to wearing your old hearing aids for a day or so (or no aids if this is your first pair) and see what the difference is like.

It’s easy to forget the difference a new pair of hearing aids is making, even after only a week, so swapping back to your old way of hearing gives you something solid to compare against.

Cornell researchers and colleagues have created cell phones that allow deaf people to communicate in sign language, the same way hearing people use phones to talk.

For those who are deaf or hard of hearing, cell phone use has largely been limited to text messaging. But technology is catching up: Cornell researchers and colleagues have created cell phones that allow deaf peopleto communicate in sign language — the same way hearing people use phones to talk.

“We completely take cell phones for granted,” said Sheila Hemami, Cornell professor of electrical and computer engineering, who leads the research with Eve Riskin and Richard Ladner of the University of Washington. “Deaf people can text, but if texting were so fabulous, cell phones would never develop. There is a reason that we like to use our cell phones. People prefer to talk.”

The technology, Hemami continued, is about much more than convenience. It allows deaf people “untethered communication in their native language” — exactly the same connectivity available to hearing people, she said.

Since the project, Mobile ASL (American Sign Language), started four years ago, the researchers have published several academic papers on their technology and given talks around the world. The first phone prototypes were created last year and are now in the hands of about 25 deaf people in the Seattle area.

Standard videoconferencing is used widely in academia and industry, for example, in distance-learning courses. But the Mobile ASL team designed their video compression software specifically with ASL users in mind, with the goal of sending clear, understandable video over existing limited bandwidth networks. They also faced such constraints as phones’ battery life and their ability to process real-time video at enough frames per second. They solved the battery life problem by writing software smart enough to vary the frames per second based on whether the user is signing or watching the other person sign.

Read the full text on PhysOrg.com. Seen on The Deaf Blog.

>Deep inside the ear, specialized cells called hair cells detect vibrations in the air and translate them into sound. Ten years ago, Stefan Heller, PhD, professor of otolaryngology at the Stanford University School of Medicine, came up with the idea that if you could create these cells in the laboratory from stem cells, it would go a long way toward helping scientists understand the molecular basis of hearing in order to develop better treatments for deafness.

After years of lab work, researchers in Heller’s lab report in the May 14 issue of Cell that they have found a way to develop mouse cells that look and act just like the animal’s inner-ear hair cells — the linchpin to our sense of hearing and balance — in a petri dish.

If they can further perfect the recipe to generate hair cells in the millions, it could lead to significant scientific and clinical advances along the path to curing deafness in the future, they said.

“This gives us real hope that there might be some kind of therapy for regenerating hair cells,” said David Corey, PhD, professor of neurobiology at Harvard University who was not involved in the study. “It could take a decade or more, but it’s a possibility.”

Using both embryonic stem cells from mice as well as reprogrammed mouse fibroblasts (a type of relatively undifferentiated cell found in many parts of the body), the researchers present a step-by-step guide on how to coax these cells into the sensory cells that normally reside in the inner ear.

“We knew it was really working when we saw them in the electron microscope,” Heller said. “They really looked like they were more or less taken out of the ear.”

Humans are born with 30,000 cochlear and vestibular hair cells per ear. (By contrast, one retina harbors about 120 million photoreceptors.) When a significant number of these cells are lost or damaged, hearing loss occurs. The major reason for hearing loss and certain balance disorders is that — unlike other species such as birds — humans and other mammals are unable to spontaneously regenerate these hearing cells.

Can anyone recommend an Assistive Listening Device for one-to-one use at home? I know next to to nothing about ALDs, I’ve never used one – If you have and can recommend it could you please leave a comment below? Thanks.

For anyone interested, there’s a good article on ALDs here.

Sonova is reporting record sales of CHF 1.249 billion (USD $1.124 billion) and further expanded its market share on the back of organic growth of 7.8% in local currencies and 3.0% growth from acquisitions. Profitability was maintained at a high level, with an Earnings Before Interest, Tax and Amortisation (EBITA) margin of 26.6%. Income after taxes amounted to CHF 284 million (USD $255 million).

The rise in net profit  in the year to end-March, beat analysts’ average forecast for CHF 272 million.

Sonova saw strong sales increases in key markets such as Germany, France, Italy, the United States, and Canada as demand for the group’s mid- and lower-tier products rose sharply.

“We significantly exceeded market growth and expanded our market share to around 23% in value terms,” CEO Valentin Chapero said in a statement. “This makes us the world’s biggest manufacturer of hearing systems, according to sales.”

Other aspects of Sonova’s full-year (2008-2009) results report include:

• 3.0% growth by acquisitions – distribution network further strengthened through acquisitions and foundation of new Group Companies
• 62% of sales achieved with products launched less than two years ago — most innovative and comprehensive product portfolio in the industry
• New product releases: the hearing systems Versáta, Certéna, Audéo YES, Next and 360 set new benchmarks in hearing system technology
• Board of Directors proposes the election of three new members to the Annual General Shareholders’ Meeting
• Positive outlook for the financial year 2009/10: based on current market conditions, the Sonova Group expects an organic growth of 6-8% in local currencies and an EBITA margin around the previous year’s level

Source: The Hearing Review

A person’s hearing loss is categorised as being either mild, moderate, severe or profound. Audiologists and other hearing professionals use these terms; the four types of hearing loss are defined as follows:

• Mild means that the person is unable to hear sounds between 20dB and 40dB
• Moderate means that the person is unable to hear sounds between 41dB and 70dB
• Severe means that the person is unable to hear sounds between 71dB and 95dB
• Profound means that the person is unable to hear sounds below 95dB

You can have a look at decibel levels of common sounds to get an idea of what sounds a person with each kind of loss will, or will not, be able to hear.

Sarah, who writes the Speak Up Librarian blog, has just launched a range of t-shirts for the hard of hearing. She says that the prints, “express our communication needs with grace, humor, and a little bit of attitude”. And they certainly do that!

Check out the Speak Up Librarian Store for the full range. Think I’m gonna get myself a Say What?.

The most common form of tinnitus (subjective tinnitus) is where only the sufferer can hear the noise – i.e. there is no noise being produced by the physical body, it’s all the mind. Common suggestions to alleviate tinnitus include TRT, de-stressing, noise therapy and relaxation techniques like yoga.

Most of the recommended treatments for tinnitus involve the brain. TRT involves training the brain to stop perceiving the noise, noise therapy creates a distraction from the tinnitus and the other de-stressing techniques like yoga are trying to get your brain into a state or relaxation because it has been shown that stress worsens tinnitus.

Given that there is a strong link between the brain and tinnitus I am surprised that hypnosis/hypnotherapy isn’t suggested more often as a way to reduce the symptoms. The NHS don’t mention it, the BTA don’t mention it and the ATA mention it very briefly in their alternative treatments section.

I Googled for studies into hypnosis and tinnitus and found this, this and this – all of those a controlled studies and they all concluded that hypnosis was beneficial to those tinnitus sufferers in the study. Of course, I’m sure there are also studies where the outcome was negative and the conclusion was that hypnosis didn’t work, but I couldn’t find them – to be honest, it was hard enough finding the three above when I had to sift through a million-and-one hypnosis services offering treatments.

I’m not for a second suggesting that you should rush straight out and get hypnotised, I am merely wondering why it is not being put forward more often as a possible cure.

I have been hypnotised once myself, many years ago, I basically asked if there was anything the hypnotherapist could do to improve my hearing. Although the hypnosis session didn’t actually improve my hearing (surprise!) it certainly did change my attitude towards it, I was more at ease with it and happier to let people know about it afterwards. Being hypnotised was certainly a positive thing for me and I’m definitely considering it to help with my own tinnitus.

What’s your opinion? Do you have tinnitus? Would you consider hypnosis or have you already tried it?

One of three US adults already suffers from some degree of hearing loss and the use of personal stereos and an aging population may create a hearing impairment epidemic, according to a study carried out by a team of scientists at Johns Hopkins University.

The researchers estimated that 55 million Americans have hearing loss in one or both ears, with men, whites and the least-educated most affected, while one out of six, or 29 million adults, have some trouble discerning speech, more than previous estimates, they reported in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

“The prevalence of hearing loss in the United States is predicted to rise significantly because of an aging population and the growing use of personal listening devices. Indeed, there is concern that we may be facing an epidemic of hearing impairment,” Dr. Yuri Agrawal of the Baltimore hospital wrote.

It is common for people to ignore or disavow hearing loss, the researchers said, leading to difficulty communicating that can result in productivity problems at work, depression, and less access to health care that ultimately raises the risk of sickness and death.

Hearing loss is common among people 70 and older, according to the report. But hearing loss also affected 8.5% of those in their 20s and 17% of people in their 30s. Exposure to workplace noise, firearms, and loud music were all risk factors.

Assessing health information collected from 5,700 Americans aged 20 to 69 years between 1999 and 2004 in the federal National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, Agrawal and colleagues found men were twice as likely as women (21% versus 11%) to have speech-frequency hearing loss in one or both ears.

Whites were more than twice as prone to hearing loss than blacks, and those with less education were more at risk than those who completed high school or beyond. Also dramatically increasing the chances of hearing loss were smoking, high blood pressure and diabetes.

Screening for hearing loss should begin in young adulthood, particularly for vulnerable groups, Agrawal concluded.

SOURCE: Reuters