The Hearing Knowledge Hub
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Hearing checks to be the norm in schools for SEND kids
Hearing tests for children with special educational needs and disabilities SEND The NHS will be offering ear, eye and dental checks to children and young people with special educational needs in their schools from next year. The scheme will be offered at all residential special schools and colleges in England and will reach 18,000 pupils. Students with learning disabilities and some autistic young people can struggle to say when they experience problems. This new move aims to catch important health diagnoses by bringing the checks to the students in familiar surroundings. A pilot has shown that when the checks are carried out by staff they already know and trust it…
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Listening to music with hearing loss
Enjoying music when you have a hearing loss. Some tips for you: If you’ve watched the progress of contestant Tasha Ghouri on the BBC’s Strictly Come Dancing, you’d never guess that she has been deaf since birth. Tasha received a cochlear implant aged five, but she also lip reads and uses BSL. While Tasha appears to be navigating the dance show with ease, she has admitted to concentration fatigue in the rehearsal room with the need to lip read her dance partner Aljaž Škorjanec, and she experiences bad migraines due to the effects of the magnets that are part of the implant. A cochlear implant often processes rhythms better than…
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Loop Earplugs – the latest cool accessory
Earplugs – The latest cool accessory! Over seven million Brits suffer from tinnitus, 1.5 million of them severely. And earlier this year the World Health Organisation stated that over one billion young adults worldwide are at risk of permanent, avoidable hearing loss due to unsafe listening practices. A lot of the problem is music. The volume of the music at an average club comes in at around 100dB and 110dB is typical for live music. Even a classical orchestra can reach 94dB, and a rock band can peak as high as 125dB. But at 100dB, you can only be exposed for 15 minutes before you’ll likely to start to cause…
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The ‘the cocktail party effect’ solved with AI
Have you ever found yourself at a party with lots of background noise but still been able to follow what another guest is saying to you? It’s not easy, and there’s a phrase for this situation and the hearing challenges it poses: ‘the cocktail party effect’. But people with normal hearing and good auditory processing are actually pretty good at listening to one person while filtering out other people’s voices. For a long time the same couldn’t be said of hearing technology. Delivering suitably clear speech in noise is something the top end hearing aid models have only been able to achieve in the last few years. And how about…
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Signapse uses AI generated images to translate train announcements into British Sign Language (BSL)
A recently launched app called Signapse uses AI generated images to translate train announcements into British Sign Language (BSL). It seems that not a month goes by now without a new app being launched to support deaf and hard of hearing people enjoy more accessible travel, take a more active part in public events, or receive better healthcare treatment. The rise of artificial intelligence – or AI – has a lot to do with it. While many people have understandable concerns about the uses of AI, there are certainly many areas where it can be a major force for good. Take a recently launched app called Signapse, which uses AI…
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October is audiology awareness month!
National Audiology Awareness Month! October marks the start of National Audiology Awareness Month – yes, we get our very own awareness month – and an opportunity to highlight the important role loved ones play in your support when you have hearing loss. At The Hearing Clinic we always encourage patients to bring a partner or other loved one along to appointments so we can hear first-hand how their hearing loss manifests in day-to-day life with their nearest and dearest. Remember, family members are usually well aware of a person’s hearing loss long before the person themselves. We also like to speak to family members because they can tell us how…
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NHS or Private Hearing Aids?
NHS or Private Hearing aids – what you need to know What’s the difference between NHS hearing aids and private hearing aids? A worrying number of people – around 1 in 5 – who have NHS hearing aids don’t actually wear them. Frequent complaints seem to be that they can’t hear through them, or they’re uncomfortable. This may be because NHS services that are under pressure may not have had the time to properly adjust hearing aids to a person’s specific hearing loss, or to explain them properly, so the person doesn’t know how to get the best from them. Everyone seems to have an opinion about the topic of…
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Deep Neural Networks in hearing aids!
What’s all the fuss about the deep neural network? If you’ve been worrying about the potential for artificial intelligence – or AI – to take over the world, there’s one area where it can only be a force for good. That’s in hearing aids. The latest high-end models use a deep neural network, or DNN, to deliver very clear speech recognition in noise – typically one of the hardest jobs of a hearing aid. The DNN uses highly sophisticated, multi-layered modelling to process data in a way that’s inspired by the human brain. Once the system has been trained to recognise what it needs to, it can make predictions and…
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Tre Lowe, The Apprentice and tinnitus
While Tre didn’t become Lord Sugar’s next business partner, there’s one thing he is boss of – his tinnitus! If you caught the last series of The Apprentice, which concluded in the spring, you’ll have seen musician and entrepreneur, Tre Lowe, make it through to the semi-final. While Tre didn’t become Lord Sugar’s next business partner, there’s one thing he is boss of – his tinnitus. Tre has lived with tinnitus – a ringing, buzzing or roaring in the ears, which has no external source – since he was 15 and is keen to share his experience of the condition to help others. Tre describes his multifrequency tinnitus as so…
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Cancer treatment and hearing loss
If chemotherapy is the way forward for you, it’s important to know that these powerful chemicals that are capable of killing cancer cells may also put you at risk of hearing loss or tinnitus. When you’re diagnosed with cancer, it’s a natural response to accept whatever treatment option your oncologist suggests. However, it’s important to understand exactly what the side effects may be of your recommended treatment, so you can make an informed decision. For example, therapies like cisplatin, vincristine, doxorubicin, gemcitabine, cyclophosphamide and oxaliplatin all have elevated risks of hearing loss. It may be possible to switch to a different treatment if you’re finding your hearing is being impacted,…
