Hearing aid batteries can be tempting and easy to swallow for small children and infants. Always store and dispose of batteries where children can not get at them.

Occasionally, batteries have been mistaken for pills, always verify your medication before swallowing.

Always store hearing aid batteries in a dry place at room temperature. Do not store them in the refrigerator, nor store them under excessive heat.

Metal objects such as coins or keys can short out a battery.

A zinc air battery uses air outside the battery as a source of power. The tab is on the battery to seal the air hole and ensure freshness until you are ready to use the battery. To activate the battery, simply remove the tab, wait one minute to allow air to enter and activiate the ingredients, and insert the battery into your hearing aid. Replacing the tab when the battery is not in use will not extend the battery.

Also, check to see if all the glue from the tab comes off with the tab, if glue is covering the air hole the battery will not work. If glue sticks to the battery you can easily remove it with a erasure.

If the battery gets wet it will erode rapidly. Take the battery out of your hearing aid and dispose of it. Remove any excess mosture from the hearing aid and then insert a clean dry battery.

Hearing Aid batteries come in 5 common sizes. The most common hearing aid battery sizes are 10, 13, 312, 675 and 5. To identify the size, most manufactures use an industry standard color code on their zinc air tabs and packaging. Manufactures often place letters before or after the battery size to disignate their order number. For instance, 13A or R13ZA are both size 13 batteries.

Hearing aid batteries are dangerous if swallowed. If a battery should be accidentally swallowed, see a doctor immediately or call the National Button Battery Hotline @ 202-625-3333.

Recycling of your used hearing aid batteries helps to protect the environment and conserves resources. For information on how you can properly dispose of or recycle your used hearing aid batteries, call your local recycling hot line.

Battery Sale now in progress.  See the coupon on our specials page or watch for the printed copy in the Clipper Coupon magazine in the Fond du Lac Action Advertiser Wed. Jan. 18th!!

One of the real joys of the Holiday Season is the opportunity to say Thank You and to wish you the very best for the New Year!

Holiday Office Hours:
Our offices will be closed Friday Dec. 23 and Monday Dec. 26 for Christmas
AND Friday Dec. 30 and Monday Jan. 2 for New Years.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Ann Pickart, Chris Lisko, Diana Krupp, Lisa Moriearty, Christine Kaminski and Amanda Gonzalez

If you cannot hear the sounds of the consonants f, s, t, and z or high pitched sounds, chances are you are you are suffering from high frequency hearing loss.

“Most healthy people are not aware that they suffer from high frequency hearing loss, which is very common,” said Dr Joyti Mohite, associcate professor, audiology and speech therapy department at Nair Hospital.

Every year, medical students at Nair and JJ hospitals are screened for health problems. This year, the results were startling — around 50% of the 300 students were found suffering from the high hearing frequency loss. “We found that those with high hearing frequency loss would talk on their mobile phones for hours and listened to loud music on their earphones,” said Dr Mohite.

“Currently, these students do not have any problem, but we have asked them not to use the mobile phone rigorously and avoid exposure to loud noise,” she added.

People with high frequency hearing loss can hear vowels, but not consonants f, s, t, and z. “People with high frequency hearing loss show symptoms like inability to hear consonants, failure to hear high pitched sounds, tinnitus (abnormally loud sounds in the ear canal for some duration), difficulty talking in groups and inability to hear when there noise in the background,” explained Dr Mohan Jagde, head of ENT department, Sir JJ group of hospitals.

He advised that before seeking treatment, people should visit an audiologist (or Hearing Instrument Specialist) to find out what type of hearing loss they have and the extent of the damage. “If people with high frequency hearing loss people do not take proper precautions, they may need hearing aids soon,” said Dr Neelam Sathe, lecturer in the ENT department, KEM Hospital.

Apart from loud noise, diabetes, neuropathy, genetics, and infections like cold, flu and meningitis can cause high frequency hearing loss.

Published: Wednesday, Nov 16, 2011, 10:00 IST | Updated: Wednesday, Nov 16, 2011, 17:23 IST
By Santosh Andhale | Place: Mumbai

One in five Americans has hearing loss.

Yes, you heard that right.

A study published Monday in Archives of Internal Medicine found that 20% of Americans over the age of 12 experience hearing loss in at least one ear. That figure surprised study leader Dr. Frank R. Lin, an assistant professor of otolaryngology and epidemiology at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore.

Lin and his colleagues also found that nearly 13% of Americans suffered hearing loss in both ears. That was about what Lin had expected, he said.

Other studies have sought to determine how many people in specific populations (women, for example, or teenagers) have some sort of hearing loss, but there has never been a number for the entire United States, Lin said.

Because hearing loss could eventually lead to bigger problems, such as developing dementia or social isolation, understanding how many people are affected is not a trivial matter, Lin said.

“You need a number to begin with in order to understand the public health impact,” he said.

Researchers used data from the National Health and Nutritional Examination Surveys (NHANES), a program that has periodically gathered health data from cities all over the country and statistically mimics the U.S. population.

For any adult, the loss of hearing could impair their ability to communicate efficiently, which opens doors to neurobiological issues, Lin said.

“With bad hearing, your brain has to allocate more of its resources to help with hearing at the expense of cognition,” he said. “This may be a factor that could lead to developing dementia over time.”

The inability to communicate properly could also lead to social isolation, which studies have found can lead to bad health outcomes.

A 2004 study published in the journal Psychoneuroendocrinology found that social isolation and loneliness were linked to depression, hopelessness, low self-esteem and reported sleep problems. And a study this year in Health Psychology found that loneliness was associated with a greater risk of being inactive, smoking, as well as blood pressure problems and the development of cardiovascular disease.

The big problem with hearing loss, Lin said, is that people assume it’s an unavoidable part of aging and don’t seek medical help. The loss comes on very slowly and when it happens it’s easy to ignore because people have become accustomed to it, Lin said. Unless it’s acute hearing loss, then “people go crazy.”

There’s nothing you can do about losing your hearing due to genetics or age, but other forms of impairment could be prevented by simply turning down the volume on your iPod, Lin said.

Anyone who suspects they have any type of hearing loss — or are constantly being told by their families that they aren’t listening — should consider a consultation with an audiologist, Lin said.

“If it’s confirmed, you should really get treated,” he said. Hearing aids have proved to be a no-risk treatment, he said. “It’s been clearly established that hearing aids can only help and not hurt.”

November 14, 2011|By Dalina Castellanos, Los Angeles Times/ For the Booster Shots blog

By: Janice Schacter of Hearing Health Magazine

Misconceptions about people who are deaf or hard of hearing are common place – some antiquated stereotypes, others are just incorrect assumptions. It’s easy enough to get the wrong idea as hearing loss can be an invisible disability – unlike the wheelchair that signals a mobility challenge. Whether it’s a total stranger trying to make small talk in sign language or a overly slowly articulating coworker or relative, it’s time we initiated the conversation that will correct misconceptions and remove the stigma associated with deafness and hearing loss. This list of the more common misconceptions there are many more – can be a good starting point for that conversation.

1 EVERYONE WITH HEARING LOSS USES SIGN LANGUAGE AND READS LIPS.
Hearing loss spans across a spectrum from mild to completely deaf and not all people with hearing loss communicate the same way. Communication depends on a variety of factors, such as the degree of hearing loss, whether a hearing aid or cochlear implant is used, the age at which the person lost their hearing, the level of auditory training received, and the nature of the listening situation. The majority of people with hearing loss do not use sign language but it is still important to those whose communication depends on it.

American Sign Language is a visual language with its own syntax and grammar that is quite different from spoken and written English. Sign language varies by country as well. A person with some knowledge of sign language is not a substitute for a qualified interpreter who is trained to transmit what is said clearly and accurately.

Some people with hearing loss read lips and others do not. Lip reading, also called speech reading, is most helpful as a supplement to residual hearing, even though many speech sounds are not visible on the lips. It does help to face the person with hearing loss when speaking. Many people can pick up visual clues even if they are not proficient at lip reading.

2 TALKING LOUDER WILL HELP A PERSON WITH HEARING LOSS TO UNDERSTAND.
Increasing the volume is only part of the solution; clarity is also important. And there is a point where increasing the volume begins to distort the quality of sound. To obtain sufficient clarity, people with residual hearing may require sound to be transmitted from a microphone directly to their ear via an assistive listening system. Sitting close to the speaker can assist the listener (it facilitates lip reading) but is not a substitute for an assistive listening system. Yelling and over-articulating does not help because these distort the natural rhythm of speech and make lip reading more difficult. A person who can hear normally cannot determine whether the sound is adequate for a person with hearing loss.

3 HEARING AIDS AND COCHLEAR IMPLANTS RESTORE HEARING TO NORMAL.
A person does not obtain normal hearing by wearing a hearing aid or cochlear implant. These are not solutions for hearing that are equivalent to wearing glasses to correct poor eyesight. Hearing aids increase the volume but only slightly enhance clarity by raising the volume in certain frequencies. The improvement a cochlear implant makes can vary from providing near-normal hearing to only gaining an awareness of environmental sounds with no comprehension of what they mean. Results depend on such factors as the individual’s hearing history, length and onset of deafness and age of implantation. People with hearing loss may be able to understand and respond correctly many times by listening intently, but they can miss important information. Furthermore, it can be tiring to listen intently for a prolonged period.

4 PEOPLE WITH HEARING LOSS ARE STUPID, MUTE AND UNSUCCESSFUL.
People with hearing loss have the same range of intelligence as the general hearing population. People with untreated, or inadequately treated, hearing loss may respond inappropriately since they may have not heard what was said.

Some people with hearing loss can speak and others cannot; again, there are many factors at play. A person who speaks well doesn’t necessarily hear well. And it can be frustrating or upsetting when others remark on how well they speak and even more so if the remark is directed to a bystander, rather than directly to the person with hearing loss.

People with hearing loss are fully employable but may need certain accommodations for effective communication, as required by the Americans with Disabilities Act. It is always best to ask the person what type of accommodation is needed.

When conversing via telephone and using a relay service, there may be delays for interpreting or transcribing. People who are not familiar with relay services may wrongly assume that the lag time reflects on the level of intelligence of the person with hearing loss.

5 PEOPLE WITH HEARING LOSS TEND TO BE OLDER ADULTS.
Of the 36 million people with some form of hearing loss, only 30 percent are 65 or older.

6 PEOPLE WITH HEARING LOSS ARE DEFINED BY THEIR HEARING LOSS.
Hearing loss is a characteristic, like the color of one’s eyes. It does not define a person. The person should be listed first, for example, a person who is hard of hearing, a person who is deaf, or a person with hearing loss. (See People First).

7 HAVING HEARING LOSS IS SHAMEFUL.
This assumption at least partly explains why many people with hearing loss will not purchase or use hearing aids. According to the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, Only one out of five people who could benefit from a hearing aid actually wears one.

8 WHEN PEOPLE WITH HEARING LOSS MISS SOMETHING, IT’S OK TO TELL THEM, IT’S NOT IMPORTANT, OR, I’LL TELL YOU LATER.
It’s frustrating to people with hearing loss not to have something repeated when they miss part of the conversation. Saying, It wasn’t important compounds the frustration because now not only did they miss part of the conversation but the conversation is also being edited. The person with hearing loss wants to decide for himself or herself what is important.

9 PEOPLE WITH HEARING LOSS ARE RUDE AND PUSHY.
If a person with hearing loss interrupts a conversation, it is probably because they didn’t hear the speaker, not because they are rude. People with hearing loss may position themselves toward the front of a group or in a room so that they are closer to the speaker, making it easier for them to hear and lip read. This behavior is sometimes incorrectly interpreted as pushiness.

10 PEOPLE WITH HEARING LOSS MOSTLY HANG OUT WITH OTHER PEOPLE WITH HEARING LOSS.
Hearing loss can affect anyone and does not discriminate. People with hearing loss spend time with family or friends who may or may not have hearing loss. They do not want to be relegated to special seats away from the rest of the people they are with.

11 EVERYONE WHO NEEDS AN ASSISTIVE LISTENING SYSTEM CAN USE EAR BUDS OR HEADPHONES.
Ear buds and ear bud-style headsets require people with hearing aids to remove their hearing aids. Headsets typically do not work for people who wear behind-the-ear (BTE) hearing aids nor for many people who have more than mild hearing loss because the sound output is insufficient.

People who have cochlear implants or T-coils in their hearing aid can receive signals directly through their hearing aid or cochlear implant when an induction loop is used. They can also access FM or infrared signals directly to their hearing aid or sound processor by using a neck loop receiver or an attachment (boot) to their aid or sound processor. The neck loop can be plugged into headphones but most one-piece headphones lack jacks.

12 THE WHEELCHAIR SYMBOL REPRESENTS UNIVERSAL ACCESS.
The wheelchair symbol does not represent people who are deaf, hard of hearing, visually impaired or who have cognitive disabilities. Using the wheelchair as a symbol of universal access makes it more difficult for appropriate access to be obtained for other disabilities, since mobility is the only disability portrayed by this symbol.

It is also important to use the appropriate hearing loss symbols to specify the kinds of access being provided. There are different symbols for interpreting, assistive listening devices and systems, and open and closed captioning (see Symbology).

Many companies provide access information under the heading of Access or Accessibility, which is preferred to terms such as Disabled Services or Handicapped Services, since the latter imply a deficiency in the person rather than removal of barriers. However, as access is not limited to mobility impairments, business Web sites, brochures and promotional materials should provide information for people with hearing loss, visual impairments and cognitive disabilities as well.

13 HEARING ACCESS ISN’T NEEDED BECAUSE IT’S SO RARELY REQUESTED.
Many people with hearing loss are so accustomed to there being no accessibility accommodations that they don’t inquire about it unless it is publicized. Access, when made available and publicized, is usually used.

14 PEOPLE WITH HEARING LOSS READ BRAILLE.
People who are blind read Braille.

15 PROVIDING ACCESS FOR PEOPLE WITH HEARING LOSS IS VERY EXPENSIVE.
Hearing access is less expensive than most people think. Many solutions exist for just a few hundred dollars. Obtaining price estimates is advisable.

16 DEAF, HEARING IMPAIRED, HANDICAPPED OR DISABLED ONE IS AS GOOD AS THE OTHER.
The umbrella term for the category is people who are deaf or hard of hearing. Deaf denotes a profound loss of hearing and can also be used to refer to the community of people who are deaf and share a language, such as American Sign Language, and a culture. Hearing impaired is not a preferred term.

17 COMPANIES OR ACCESSIBILITY EXPERTS WITH NO BACKGROUND WITH HEARING LOSS CAN KNOW WHAT BEST MEETS THE NEEDS OF PEOPLE WITH HEARING LOSS.
When hiring an access coordinator, it is critical to investigate the person’s experience. A person can be an expert in one area of access, such as mobility impairments, but may not understand access issues for people with hearing loss, visual impairments or cognitive disabilities. Also, hiring a person with hearing loss does not guarantee that the person has knowledge of effective access for people with hearing loss or for the full range of hearing loss.

Janice Schacter is an accomplished advocate across the hearing advocacy and related political spectrum. She founded the Hearing Access Program in 2002. It is the only organization dedicated to helping the world’s corporations, cultural and entertainment institutions, government agencies and mass transit organizations improve their accessibility for people with hearing loss.
This article was developed in consultation with people and organizations representing people with hearing loss.

By: Jamie Morrison of Hearing Health Magazine

If you’ve ever had a drink in a noisy bar, you may have noticed that the noise level seemed to increase as the evening wore on and more drinks were consumed. “Cocktail party deafness” not only causes drinkers to speak louder so they can be heard, it can also result in a morning-after sensation of mild hearing loss.

British researchers, led by Tahwinder Upile, M.D., of University College London, have found that consuming alcohol immediately reduces a person’s ability to hear, at least in the short term. Thirty volunteers had their hearing tested before beginning to drink. They then drank the same amount of alcohol, and had their hearing tested again. According to the study, published in BMC Ear, Nose and Throat Disorders in 2007, “alcohol increased the hearing threshold in all individuals.” In other words, the minimum volume a drinker needed to be able to hear grew. What’s more, they found that “alcohol specifically blunts lower frequencies affecting mostly 1000Hz, which is the most crucial frequency for speech discrimination.” Within a week, however, hearing appeared to have returned to its prior level.

Over the past decade, scientists have been examining the effect drinking has on hearing health. They have found that alcohol has both protective and destructive effects on hearing ability, although as might be expected, heavier drinking does more damage.

One of the most recent studies is also one of the most long term. The Prospective Study of Alcohol Use and Hearing Loss in Men, published in August 2010 in the journal Ear and Hearing, examined nearly 27,000 men every two years since 1986. According to research lead Sharon Curhan, M.D., of Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital, there was “no association between level of alcohol intake and risk of hearing loss.”

Interestingly, the study noted that “among those with lower intake of vitamin B12, however, higher consumption of alcohol, specifically liquor, was associated with an increased risk of hearing loss.” Researchers said a possible relation between alcohol consumption, vitamin B12which occurs naturally in animal products such as meat, fish, poultry, and dairy, and is also in fortified breakfast cereals and hearing loss is worth additional investigation.

The Effects of Heavy Drinking

It’s well known that heavy, long-term alcohol intake can seriously worsen your health. This includes your hearing. A 2004 German study published in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research found that heavy drinking caused damage to the brainstem, resulting in hearing loss. Elisabeth Stephanie Smith, M.D., a member of the Ear, Nose and Throat Clinic at Germany’s University of Ulm, told the health news website Medical News Today that not only does chronic alcohol consumption cause brain shrinkage, “but it also leads to defects of the central auditory tracks, which causes delays in neurotransmission time.”

Smith studied brainstem auditory evoked potentials (BAEPs), currents that circulate within the brain, to evaluate how much damage had been done by alcohol intake to the hearing ability of those in the study. “When an acoustic stimulus on the brain is presented, a particular current response is activated. This response can be detected by electrodes,” she said. As a result, Smith was able to track the BAEP response in the brains of individuals who had consumed varying quantities of alcohol throughout their lifetimes.

“Drinkers with lower lifelong alcohol consumption still have a normal amount of healthy nerves in the brain, whereas drinkers with high lifelong alcohol consumption have a much larger amount of defective nerves,” says Tilman Keck, M.D., Smith’s colleague and an assistant clinical professor in the Department of Otorhinolaryngology at the University of Ulm. But they found that damage to the auditory nerves still occurred in the brains of social drinkers.

The German study bore out the results of an earlier study conducted by Karen J. Cruickshanks, Ph.D., and her colleagues at the University of Wisconsin, published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society in 2000. While examining an older population for evidence of alcohol’s effect on hearing loss, Cruickshanks found that “there was an increase in the odds of having a high frequency hearing loss in those with a history of heavy drinking.” In this study that was defined as four or more drinks a day.

A Possible Protective Effect
But among those whose consumption of alcohol was moderate, here defined as more than one glass of wine, beer, or liquor per week, the Wisconsin researchers said this was “inversely associated with hearing loss.” Not only is there evidence of “a modest protective association of alcohol consumption and hearing loss,” but hearing loss is also not inevitable with aging, they concluded.

Likewise, a 2008 study from the University of Antwerp in Belgium, published in the Journal of the Association for Research in Otolaryngology, found that moderate alcohol consumption, defined here as at least one drink a week, “was seen to have a protective effect.”

Australian scientists examined the effects of both alcohol and smoking on hearing loss among 2,956 people over age 50. Their study, led by Bamini Gopinath, Ph.D., and others at the University of Sydney and published in Ear and Hearing in 2010, found “a significant protective association between the moderate consumption of alcohol [defined as between one and two drinks a day] and hearing function in older adults,” compared with nondrinkers.

They also discovered that “when the joint effects of alcohol consumption and smoking on hearing were explored, there was a trend for alcohol to have a protective relationship with hearing loss in smokers, but this was not statistically significant.”

Writing in the Summer 2010 issue of Hearing Health magazine, Jochen Schacht, Ph.D., of the Kresge Hearing Research Institute at the University of Michigan, said resveratrol, a naturally occurring substance in red wine, shows promise as a protector of inner ear hair cells. Resveratrol has also been shown to fight heart disease and, in studies performed on mice, extend life span.

The mixed verdict on the effects of alcohol on hearing is also manifest in relation to tinnitus, or ringing in the ears. Researchers at the Welsh Hearing Institute at University Hospital Wales examined 100 people who experienced chronic tinnitus and the results were published in the British Journal of Audiology in 1995. Twenty-two percent of the sample reported that drinking worsened tinnitus and 16 percent reported that alcohol improved tinnitus. The majority of those in the study found no effect.

Few health professionals would encourage those with hearing loss to take up drinking as a treatment. While research is still ongoing, the wisest course in terms of alcohol intake like many other things is very likely to be one of moderation.

Just as guide dogs have proven to be great living companions for the blind, hearing dogs are becoming increasingly popular for people who are deaf and hard of hearing (D/HH). Doorbells, smoke alarms, ringing telephones or alarm clocks no longer go unnoticed by D/HH owners thanks to these faithful companions.

Hearing dogs usually spend four to six months in training, learning how to alert their future owners to sounds in their environment. Dogs for the Deaf trains its dogs to respond to the sounds related to seven common household items: fi re and smoke alarms, telephones, oven timers, alarm clocks, doorbells and knocks at the door and the calling of their owner’s name. The dogs are sometimes trained to respond to a baby crying, as well. Once the dog is placed, owners can easily teach dogs to recognize other sounds, such as those associated with a microwave oven, tea kettle and washer and dryer. And their work isn’t limited to inside the house. Hearing dogs certifi ed for public access help their owners be more aware of their environment on the street, in the shopping mall and other public spaces.

Generally, applicants for a hearing dog are not required to pay for the training but they are required to submit an application fee. Some organizations require a deposit to guarantee that the dog is kept for one year; after this initial period, the money is refunded.

Some of the things considered by the placing organizations are the home environment (other pets, a fenced area for the hearing dog, adequate exercise space), fi nancial commitment ($750 to $1500 a year for food and care) and the personal skills necessary to physically, mentally and emotionally care for the hearing dog without assistance. Some organizations require attendance at dog obedience training classes or the hiring of a private obedience trainer.

The canines must meet eligibility criteria as well. Hearing dogs must demonstrate certain qualities, such as being people-friendly, confident and motivated by toys, treats and affection. Many organizations who train hearing dogs adopt them from shelters, looking for just the right traits to make a successful hearing dog.

Hearing dogs often wear an orange collar or identifying vest which may have the words “Hearing Dog” on it. Thanks to the Americans with Disabilities Act, hearing dogs have access to any place open to the general public.

List of Hearing Dog Organizations

International Hearing Dog
5901 E. 89th Avenue
Henderson, CO 80640
303.287.3277 Voice/TDD
www.ihdi.org

Dogs for the Deaf
10175 Wheeler Road
Central Point, OR 97502
541.826.9220 Voice
www.dogsforthedeaf.org

by Scott Wasserman / FOX 9 News