Recently, the Starkey Hearing Foundation teamed up with ABC’s “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” to provide hearing aids to students and their family members from the Oregon School for the Deaf in Salem, Ore. Students and faculty members visited Starkey’s headquarters as special guests, while the Extreme Makeover team completed a building project.

This episode will air this upcoming Sunday night at 7:00 CST, or you can watch it online here. This is a great opportunity to see how hearing aids can change peoples’ lives.

Misophonia is a disorder that is characterized by an extreme aversion to specific sounds. It is a rare and little understood condition affecting the autonomic and limbic systems, resulting in intense anger, anxiety, and even rage when the individual is confronted with particular sounds. Some of the distressing sounds can include chewing, lip-smacking, scratching, leg-tapping and nail biting. Misophonia often co- occurs with Hyperacusis (abnormal sensitivity to loud sounds) and Tinnitus (audible sounds, often ringing, within the person’s head), and can lead to Phonophobia (fear of selective sounds).

It can occur in individuals of all ages and has no relation to hearing ability. Treatment may involve aversion therapy, medications, or TRT (Tinnitus Retraining Therapy). The premise of TRT is to reverse the abnormally strong connection of the limbic and autonomic nervous system to the auditory system. This involves associating unpleasant stimuli with more enjoyable sounds, thus retraining the brain to have a more positive response to the selective sounds. Treatment can generally take several months.

Also, we wanted to make a short post linking to the Starkey Hearing Foundation.

Over on Mrs. Brown’s Blog, she has posted a list of things she can hear with her new hearing aids.

So I made a list of things as the days unfolded…some big…some not so big…here goes…

• seatbelt makes a click sound
• raindrops on the windshield
• melody/harmony…never heard it, BEAUTIFUL!
• water splashing on the sink
• ice machine…crushed…yummy
• my kids in the back seat, talking, singing, arguing, all of it!
• my oven timer, even from another ROOM!
• the prelude to the Chuck series has a bunch of background sounds that I never knew were there
• birds chirping
• the sound of the steamer when my dirty chai is being made
• the sound of paper ripping and scrunching
• had to turn down the ringer on my cell phone
• at the park w/ the kids and heard all these adorable little voices w/ wind and falling leaves
• the carousel was annoying loud
• music played from the ipod or in the car does not have to be full blast
• people whispering…both ears and from all kinds of distances
• my friends and families voices as they really are…tears…lots of tears…
• the sound of Ally’s id tag clinking against her collar (Ally is our chocolate lab…first born)
• annoying talking/noise toys that our family buys for our children! thx grandparents!
• the sound of someone eating a banana…loudly
• my feet hitting the ground as I run…and all the feet around me too, so I don’t do that anymore!
• knuckles cracking
• cymbals…you know…like w/ the drums…never heard those before
• zits popping…love that sound
• discovered “background” music levels
• cereal hitting the bowl
• hearing people WITHOUT reading their lips and seeing their faces
• egg shaker – thought those were for the people who could not sing but wanted to be on stage
• tv shows w/o captions…and I can hear everything!
• egg shells cracking
• finger nails being clipped…cool sound that goes w/ that gross job
• i never understood why there was keyboard AND piano at the same time, turns out, they are different, layering i think is the fancy/music word
• church/worship/teaching was AMAZING!!!
• hearing my hubby sing, fully and completely, I was a mess, it was/is beautiful! more to come on hearing my man talk and sing…its gonna be a tear jerker…stay tuned!

Read more of Mrs. Brown’s blog here.

There is a very interesting article in USA Today that shows that hearing loss now affects one in five teens. From the article:

Because hearing loss is cumulative, these teens are at high risk for significant hearing problems as adults, says Brian Fligor, director of diagnostic audiology at Children’s Hospital Boston, who wasn’t involved in the study. Instead of developing noticeable hearing problems at age 50 or 60, these teens may have trouble hearing beginning at age 40.

An Australian study of kids with “mild to moderate” hearing loss found that using a portable music player, such as an iPod, was linked to 70% increased risk of hearing loss. And in a study of New York college students, Fligor found that more than half were listening to an MP3 player above the recommended exposure levels, which are 90 minutes a day at 80% of the maximum volume.

Read the whole article here.

In addition to hearing aids, Hearing Northwest also offers custom-made hearing protection that is molded to fit your ears and offers attenuation across all frequencies to give you a more “natural sound” than traditional foam earplugs.

For more information feel free to call us at (800) 770-8663 or email us at theexperts@hearingnorthwest.com

For some of our more tech-savvy users, Starkey Laboratories has made an application that lets your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad function as a T2 remote for your Audibel Hearing Aids! For current iPhone users, this is a great, easy, and quick way to adjust your T2-compatible Audibel hearing aid such as an Anthem Plus Gold or Platinum.

From apptism.com:

The T2 Remote application takes advantage of a new breakthrough technology from Audibel that allows users to control their hearing aids with a simple touch on their iPhone and iPod touch. This avoids the need for any additional hardware. T2 discreetly and instantly classifies the tone signal from the iPhone or iPod touch and automatically adjusts the hearing aid to the desired setting.

The T2 Remote App is available for free from apptism.com.

At Hearing Northwest, we are proud to offer Audibel’s new Anthem Plus technology. Anthem Plus reduces background noise to levels never before thought possible, without affecting the things you want to hear.

Anthem Plus technology is available in four different versions: Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum. Each version is designed to attenuate different kinds of background noise. To learn more, feel free to call Hearing Northwest at (800) 770-8663. We can help you find the Anthem Plus hearing instrument that is right for you!

www.ata.org – American Tinnitus Association

www.audibel.com – Audibel

www.audiology.org – American Academy of Audiology

www.hsdc.org – Bellingham Speech and Deafness Center

www.fcc.gov/cgb/consumerfacts/hac_wireless.html – FCC facts about cell phones and hearing aids

www.betterhearing.org – Better Hearing Institute

www.hearingloss.org – Hearing Loss Association of America

www.hearingloss-wa.org/chapters/index.html – Hearing Loss Association of Washington

www.chchearing.org – Center for Hearing and Communication

Choosing a cell phone that will work with your hearing aid can be a difficult task, but with the right information, it is certainly possible.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulates hearing aid compatibility with cellular phones.  They have stated that the phone may provide normal use with the hearing aid if the sum of the phone’s compatibility rating and the hearing aid rating equal 5. This does not mean that the phone will provide excellent use, but does meet the minimum standards for normal use. The compatibility ratings range from 1-4 and are classified with either an “M” rating or a “T” rating. So, if a phone has a T3 rating, it means that it scored a 3 while in the telecoil mode. An “M” rating means that the phone was tested with a hearing aid in microphone mode.  Obviously, the higher the rating of the cell phone, the more likely it will be compatible with your hearing aid.

Interference is another concern for cell phone use with hearing aids. Interference can be caused from many sources including backlighting on the phone, the style of the phone, radio frequencies emitted by the phone, and the sensitivity of the hearing aid to the electromagnetic interference. To reduce the interference you may try to reposition the phone to maximize the distance between the antenna of the phone and the microphone on the hearing aid.

When purchasing a cellular phone compatibility information can be obtained from several sources. It can be found on the packaging of the phone, in the product manual and on the display cards in the store next to the phone. Remember, retailers are required to allow customers to assess the phone and its hearing aid compatibility in the store before making a purchase. Try before you buy.

For more information on cell phone compatibility go to
www.fcc.gov/cgb/consumerfacts/hac_wireless.html