The Hearing Blog

Tinnitus - "Just ignore it"

2012-02-09T08:11:00.000-08:00

With no visible signs of what sufferers are going through, tinnitus can leave people feeling isolated and depressed. And with about one in ten people affected by tinnitus, there is a need for greater awareness among both the general public, and GPs specifically.

Typically referred to as a ‘ringing in the ears’, tinnitus is the sensation of hearing a noise when there is no external sound. What that noise is, can vary from person to person but can include ringing, whistling and buzzing. Sometimes the sound is continuous but sometimes it is sporadic.

But the British Tinnitus Association (BTA) is concerned that GP awareness and training of the condition is not sufficient, leading to inconsistent and inadequate advice being given to patients.
In a study part funded by the BTA, a third of patients said they were dissatisfied with the treatment they had received from their GPs, citing their doctors’ lack of knowledge and insensitivity to living with tinnitus. Only 37 per cent of tinnitus patients were referred for further assistance.

David Stockdale, chief executive of the BTA, said: “Thousands of tinnitus patients are being short-changed by their GPs. They are being either completely dismissed, told to ‘learn to live with’ the condition and are being given inaccurate information, or are not being referred to tinnitus clinics for specialist care.”

The BTA is encouraging audiology consultants to host seminars for GPs to tell them about the services available in their hospitals. Although there is currently no cure for tinnitus, there are different treatments and behavioural techniques that can help to alleviate the condition.

The precise cause of tinnitus is not known and can affect people of all ages, especially after being exposed to loud noise. Frequent and/or prolonged exposure to loud noise can damage the hearing system, which increases the risk of getting tinnitus or can make it worse in those already suffering from the condition.

Hearing loss, depression, anxiety, high blood pressure and post-traumatic stress disorder are all factors that can increase the risk of experiencing tinnitus.
Advice on how to manage tinnitus includes strategies such as:

Exercise - regular exercise boosts endorphins which improves your sense of well-being and lowers stress levels.
Relaxation - stress exacerbates the experience of tinnitus so relaxing as much as possible helps; some specific techniques include acupuncture, homeopathy and reflexology.
Music - listening to music can help as it distracts from the tinnitus noises, but avoid prolonged exposure to high-volume levels, which can make it worse.
Diet - if you are healthier and fitter it can make you feel better when you experience tinnitus. Stick to soft drinks and herbal teas, and keep well hydrated.
Products - sound therapy systems, mood lights, pillow speakers and relaxation CDs can all help.
Support groups - join a tinnitus support group in your area.
Family and friends - make sure your family and friends understand tinnitus; the more they know, the more they can help and support you.
Expert help - The BTA’s freephone helpline 0800 018 0527 and website www.tinnitus.org.uk offers more advice and help

http://uk.health.lifestyle.yahoo.net/Tinnitus-what-GPs-need-to-know.htm

Commercial Screening

2011-12-21T05:16:00.000-08:00

Noise protection in the workplace

Are you aware that by law Employers must prevent or reduce risks to health and safety from exposure to noise at work?

The Control of Noise at Work Regulations 2005 – set out by the HSE (Health and Safety Executive)

The Regulations require an employer to:

_ assess the risks to your employees from noise at work;

_ take action to reduce the noise exposure that produces those risks;

_ provide your employees with hearing protection;

_ make sure the legal limits on noise exposure are not exceeded;

_ provide your employees with information, instruction and training;

_ carry out health surveillance where there is a risk to health.

In the United Kingdom noise induced hearing loss leads to an average injury claim of £18,000 per employee, a figure that could be easily avoided through professional assessment, appropriate protection and the correct advice.

Our Latest Commercial Screening Offer

Is your workforce subject to loud noise?

Spend a day at the place of work then answer the following questions, if you can answer ‘yes’ to any, then you should probably be taking action...

1. Is the noise intrusive – like a busy street, a vacuum cleaner or a crowded restaurant – for most of the working day?

2. Do you have to raise your voice to have a normal conversation when about 2 metres apart for at least part of the day?

3. Are noisy powered machinery or intense sound systems used for over half an hour a day?

4. Did the day leave you with muffled hearing, even if it is better by the next morning?

What action should you take?

Once you have assessed the workplace and concluded that the environment is ‘too loud’, you should contact a qualified, registered Hearing Audiologist who offers ‘Commercial Hearing Screening’. The audiologist should then be able to visit your place of work with an ambiance noise meter and assess the need for noise reduction. If the environment falls under the legislated noise level thresholds, the audiologist can then offer means of protecting your staff, as well as an initial hearing screening, and follow-up annual hearing tests to monitor the efficiency of that protection.

What costs are involved?

Commercial Hearing Screening charges vary from audiologist to audiologist, and depend on the size of your workforce, but most fall in the region of £20 to £40 per person. A wide range of hearing protection products are available, from basic earplugs to electronic filters, and each offer varying levels of protection. This is why the advice of an audiologist is invaluable in helping you select the product that provides the right kind of protection. Prices for hearing protection products can start from as little as £5.

Why are we giving this advice?

Bexhill Hearing Centre has recently become a Father and Son organisation and now seeks to expand its services by offering commercial hearing screening. We are therefore pleased to offer you our new commercial hearing screening service at the special introductory price of £20 per person, with free personal hearing protection with each test. As part of our new screening service, we also offer a free, no obligation, sound level test, which will guide you on which course of action to take.

Want to know more?

Request a free pack, with all the detailed information regarding noise levels and the workplace by calling us on 01424 733030 or visiting our website at www.BexhillHearingCentre.com

Hearing loss is a dangerous thing when communication is so important.

Even Unconsciously, Sound Helps Us See

2011-12-05T02:56:00.000-08:00

"Imagine you are playing ping-pong with a friend. Your friend makes a serve. Information about where and when the ball hit the table is provided by both vision and hearing. Scientists have believed that each of the senses produces an estimate relevant for the task (in this example, about the location or time of the ball's impact) and then these votes get combined subconsciously according to rules that take into account which sense is more reliable. And this is how the senses interact in how we perceive the world.

However findings show that the senses of hearing and vision can also interact at a more basic level, before they each even produce an estimate," says Ladan Shams, a UCLA professor of psychology, and the senior author of a new study appearing in the December issue of Psychological Science, a journal published by the Association for Psychological Science. "If we think of the perceptual system as a democracy where each sense is like a person casting a vote and all votes are counted (albeit with different weights) to reach a decision, what our study shows is that the voters talk to one another and influence one another even before each casts a vote."

"The senses affect each other in many ways," says cognitive neuroscientist Robyn Kim. There are connections between the auditory and visual portions of the brain and at the cognitive level. When the information from one sense is ambiguous, another sense can step in and clarify or ratify the perception. Now, for the first time, Kim, Megan Peters, and Ladan Shams, working at the University of California Los Angeles, have shown behavioral evidence that this interplay happens in the earliest workings of perception -- not just before that logical decision-making stage, but before the pre-conscious combination of sensory information.

To demonstrate that one sense can affect another even before perception, the researchers showed 63 participants a bunch of dots on a screen, in two phases with a pause between them. In one phase, the dots moved around at random; in the other, some proportion moved together from right to left. The participants had to indicate in which phase the dots moved together horizontally. In experiment 1, the subjects were divided into three groups. While they looked at the dots, one group heard sound moving in the same direction as the right-to-left dots, and stationary sound in the random phase. A second group heard the same right-to-left sound in both phases. The third group heard the identical sound in both phases, but it moved in the opposite direction of the dots. In the second and third conditions, because the sound was exactly the same in both phases, it added no cognitively useful information about which phase had the leftward-moving dots. In experiment 2, each participant experienced trials in all three conditions.

The results: All did best under the first condition -- when the sound moved only in the leftward-motion phase. The opposite-moving sound neither enhanced nor worsened the visual perception. But surprisingly, the uninformative sound -- the one that traveled leftward both with the leftward-moving dots and also when the dots moved randomly -- helped people correctly perceive when the dots were moving from one side to the other. Hearing enhanced seeing, even though the added sense couldn't help them make the choice.

The study, says Kim, should add to our appreciation of the complexity of our senses. "Most of us understand that smell affects taste. But people tend to think that what they see is what they see and what they hear is what they hear." The findings of this study offer "further evidence that, even at a non-conscious level, visual and auditory processes are not so straightforward," she says. "Perception is actually a very complex thing affected by many factors."

"This study shows that at least in regards to perception of moving objects, hearing and sight are deeply intertwined, to the degree that even when sound is completely irrelevant to the task, it still influences the way we see the world," Shams says.

Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/

Hearing Dogs

2011-10-02T02:10:00.000-07:00

A former rescue dog that now works as a hearing dog for her severely deaf owner in Grimsby in Humberside has been named Hearing Dog of the Month by the charity that trained her in recognition of her caring nature and her ability to overcome her unfortunate beginnings.

When Daphne Tuff (78) saw pretty Poppy in a rescue centre she fell in love with the three-year-old Cairn terrier and could not resist taking her. For a year Poppy lived as a much-loved pet but in 2006 fate took a hand in her future. Daphne’s daughter, Sue, came across a Hearing Dogs for Deaf People stand at a country show, and the seed was sown as to whether Poppy would be able to be trained to help alert Daphne to sounds.

Hearing Dogs generally select all the dogs they train themselves, but occasionally they will assess a person’s own dog to see if they have the temperament and ability to learn new skills. Poppy was assessed, and in 2007 she became a fully qualified hearing dog after undergoing four months’ soundwork training where she learned to alert to various household sounds. Since then she has made a huge difference to Daphne’s life and also that of her husband, Dennis, who is also hard of hearing. “Poppy alerts me to sounds including the doorbell, the telephone and the smoke alarm,” says Daphne. “She will also fetch me if Dennis wants me or vice versa. Poppy has also taught herself to alert me to the post when it arrives; she comes and finds me, touches me with her paws then leads me to the post.”
Poppy is a real character, with a fun-loving side as Daphne explains: “Poppy loves to play hide and seek games. We hide treats in various rooms and we send her to go and sniff them out. Sometimes when she is given a treat she will take it into the garden and bury it for later … even if it is only an hour later!”

Being such a small assistance dog means that Poppy attracts a lot of interest when she is out and about, and she is certainly a star in their local area of Grimsby. “Everyone knows her and she is welcomed everywhere,” says Daphne proudly. “As Dennis and I have to take her out for walks, she is keeping us active, which is beneficial to us particularly as we both have bad health.”
As well as her amusing side, Poppy has a serious, caring side to her too. Her loving nature really came to the fore recently when Daphne was very poorly. She had just come out of hospital after a short stay there, and from the minute she got home Poppy would not leave her side as if she knew she was not well. “Poppy came in and out of the bedroom to check on me,” says Daphne. “She was very doting, and seemed very keen to do the call – fetching my husband for me – when I was ill. She understands me so well and is very considerate of my feelings, always knowing what is going on.
“Poppy is a quiet girl, affectionate and adaptable to whatever we are doing. She is no trouble, and such a joy to have around. She is an absolute star.”

So when Daphne visited the rescue centre that fateful day and fell in love with Poppy, not only did she end up with a lovely pet dog – she began a chain of events that led to a life-changing partnership for both of them.