May - June - July - August  Issue 2007

MISSION IN MEXICO

Personnel from Hearing Aid Institute attended a NuEar conference in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico in March. While there, Don Van De Riet and Sandy Harshaw also did a humanitarian hearing mission with the Starkey Foundation. They helped to fit approximately 140 people with hearing aids during one afternoon. The Starkey Foundation tests and fits underpriveleged people free of charge. What a rewarding experience to watch the awe and happiness of these adults and children as some of them hear for the first time in their lives.

The Starkey Foundation is a non-profit organization run by President Bill Austin of Minneapolis, MN. Those on the missions pay for the privilege and the Fountation has a huge Gala each year to raise money for their projects. You can help locally by donating old, used hearing aids. They may be dropped at any of our offices and they will then be sent on to the Starkey Foundation.

LISTEN UP, WOMEN

Ask any teenager who's ever tried to sneak out at night which of his parents has better hearing, and he'll tell you something that science has long known: as a group, women have better hearing throughout their lives than men. Why would that be? For years, scientists speculated that hormones might have something to do with it. But now comes suprising evidence that one of the hormones women naturally product - progesterone - seems to have a negative effect on hearing. More specifically, menopausal woman taking combined hormone therapy (estrogen and progestin, a synthetic verson of progesterone) were found to have significantly worse hearing than woman taking estrogen alone or no hormones at all.

That's the opposite of what scientists had expected to find. For years, they had hypothesized that supplemental hormones might be a way for women to fend off hearing loss or further improve their hearing as they aged. Robert D. Frisina, a neuroscientist at the University of Rochester Medical Center and researcher at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf, located at the Rochester Institute of Technology, and his colleagues wanted to test the theroy by checking to see if woman taking estrogen as part of hormone therapy had better hearing than women not taking hormone therapy.

With funding from the National Institutes of Health, researchers conducted a pilot study comparing the hearing of 64 women between the ages of 60 and 86. Half of the women were taking hormones, either a combination of estrogen and progestin, or estrogen alone. A control group took no hormones. The composition of each group was carefully matched. But when the results came in, there was little or no improvement detected in the group taking estrogen only, and the women taking combined hormone therapy scored significantly worse on simple hearing tests than those getting a placebo. Specifically, the group taking combined hormone therapy scored 10 to 30 percent worse, depending on the type of hearing test used. They did particularly bad on hearing tests that measured their ability to make out what someone was saying to them in a noisy room. the kind of situation you might encounter at a bustling cocktail party or restaurant.

Because the pilots had so few participants, a larger study was needed to confirm the results. So the same researchers recruited 124 healthy women (ages 60 to 86) who had been taking hormones for 5 to 35 years to do the same retrospective single-blind study on a larger scale and monitored their hearing with more sophisticated tests. Once again, the group taking combined hormones had a documented hearing loss of 10 to 30 percent compared to women who hadn't taken any hormones. That's a loss equivalent to aging another 5 to 10 years. In fact, those taking the combined hormones did worse on every type of hearing test they got - from the standard "pure tone" test (where you raise your hand to signal the tester that you've heard something) to more sophisticated tests that measure sound echoing out of the ear.

Since woman taking estrogen only did not experience any hearing loss, researchers have concluded that the likely culprit is progesterone. What happens now! "More research is needed, " says Frisina. "Not much is known about progesterone." "In the meantime," Frisina says, "along with increased risk of stroke, blood clots, heart disease, breast cancer and dementia, hearing loss should be one more thing women consider when deciding weather to take combined hormone therapy to relieve menopausal symptoms. That's especially true for women who already have hearing problems." And he advises those who decide to use combined hormones to get their hearing checked every six months.

It's a Dirty Job

Patient compliance, weather diet, exercise, or proper care of instruments, is always a challenge. Without immediate, visible consequences, it can be difficult to impress on a patient that potential risks that can result from inaction, Eventually, however, lack of care will affect performance and health.

When equipment is expensive, as some hearing aid systems can be, users expect to perform less preventive care. Yet if a patient brought a BMW or Jaguar, they would still expect to change the oil. Just because something is more expensive doesn't mean it takes care of itself.

Contrary to many myths, hearing aids require daily care, no matter how expensive the device. It is critical for hearing instruments to be cleaned of debris on a daily basis. A varity of products exist to help users keep their hearing aids clean and therefore maximize the performance and live of the instruments; as well as benefit ear health.

Hearing instruments are relatively small devices comprised of electronic components easily exposed to dirt, oil, moisture, and cerumen can easily clog the hearing instrument receiver, causing feedback or completely blocking incoming sound. Weather a hearing instrument is a CIC, ITC, ITE, or BTE device, debris, wax, and moisture can reduce performance or cause failure, sometimes as quickly as within a few weeks. A hearing instrument receiver, clogged by cerumen and other debris, will become weak or cut out completely. Likewise, any debris on the instrument's microphone can reduce sensivity and/or directional response. Moisture can also seep into the inner electronics, causing corrosion, and may ultimately lead to component failure

Bacteria and fungi are also potential problems. Research has shown that various bacterial and fungal growth accumulates on hearing instrument surfaces, some of which is not considered part of the normal ear canal flora. Itchy ears can actually may be due to a subclinical level of microorganisms residing within the pores of the hearing instrument, rather than an allergy to the plastic, a common diagnosis.

Generally, for proper care, there is a visual inspection, the user wipes the instrument off using a cloth or tissue, then removes debris from the microphone with a brush, and finally clears the receiver of debris using a brush, wax loop, or pick. The entire process takes about 2 to 3 minutes.

To address these issues, we offer a range of care products from wipes and brushes to devices that heat, and desiccants to clean and dry hearing instruments. Check below for a sample of some of these products or call 1-800-331-6009 for more information

CATALOG PRODUCTS

If you are in need of any products pertaining to your hearing health care please call us at 1-800-331-6009 for further information.