Photo credit: Pixabay by Daniel Fink, MD, Chair, The Quiet Coalition The Scitech Daily reported on what it calls the "neurological secrets" behind hearing in noisy surroundings. It’s difficult for many mid-life and older people to follow one conversation among many in a noisy environment, like in a busy restaurant. This difficulty is called the “speech-in-noise”
Photo credit: Anna Tarazevich by Daniel Fink, MD, Chair, The Quiet Coalition The New York Times recently reported on the current status of over-the-counter (OTC) hearing aids, which have now been available for a year. The Times article may be behind a paywall, so I’ll summarize what health reporter Paula Span wrote. First, the OTC hearing aid
Photo credit: Kampus Production by Daniel Fink, MD, Chair, The Quiet Coalition The Science Daily reported on a new method for mapping the auditory pathway developed by researchers in China. I lack the scientific background to understand “a neuroimaging technique called probabilistic tractography," but this new method may help surgeons implant devices in children born with
Photo credit: cottonbro studio by Daniel Fink, MD, Chair, The Quiet Coalition I’m a big fan of NPR. I usually listen to "All Things Considered" and a few other programs if I’m in the car and I think these programs are among the best on the radio. But in this new report on "All Things
Photo credit: ALTEREDSNAPS by Daniel Fink, MD, Chair, The Quiet Coalition Hear today, gone tomorrow. That’s the catchy title of a short article in the Royal Examiner, serving Warren County in the Shenandoah Valley from Front Royal, Virginia. The article correctly notes that about 15% of the American public, including young people, already have hearing
Photo credit: Matthew Straubmuller, licensed under CC BY 2.0 by Daniel Fink, MD, Chair, The Quiet Coalition The Jewish Chronicle, based in London, reported last week on singer Paul Simon’s sudden left-sided hearing loss. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Simon told an audience at the Toronto International Film Festival about his hearing loss; “I haven’t accepted
Photo credit: Keira Burton by Daniel Fink, MD, Chair, The Quiet Coalition NPR’s Life Kit site has a wonderfully simple cartoon with an accompanying soundtrack about protecting your ears to avoid hearing loss. I would broaden the title to “Avoid Auditory Damage” because protecting your ears to avoid hearing loss will most likely also afford protection against
Photo credit: Rodolfo Quirós by Daniel Fink, MD, Chair, The Quiet Coalition A press release from the University of Colorado’s Anschutz Medical Campus reports on assistant professor Nathaniel Greene's research on noise-induced hearing loss. As the article points out, hearing loss is very common in older people. Almost all over the age of 80 have
Photo credit: Pixabay by Daniel Fink, MD, Chair, The Quiet Coalition In the United States, hearing loss is very common after age 71. This is generally a well-known fact, but not to the level of detail reported by audiologist Nicholas Reed and colleagues at Johns Hopkins University in a recent article in JAMA Network Open. The
Photo credit: SHVETS production by Daniel Fink, MD, Chair, The Quiet Coalition Tinnitus is commonly known as ringing in the ears, but the technical definition is the perception of sound without an external sound stimulus. One of the things that has powered my noise activism is the fact that I have “skin in the game,"
