{"id":58779,"date":"2009-11-28T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2009-11-28T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"tag:www.infinitehealthresources.com:\/\/d97ed538171face86a4bea940001d781"},"modified":"2009-11-28T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2009-11-28T05:00:00","slug":"hearing-aids","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/58779","title":{"rendered":"Hearing Aids"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hearing Aids: The Future Is Now
<\/strong>Super Bowl winner and New York Giants defensive line coach Mike Waufle knows a lot about loud noise. The 54- year old is surrounded by roaring crowds every Sunday during football season. At practice he hears the crack of helmets and sharp clanking of weights. In the early 1970s as a U.S. Marine, his ears were assaulted by rifle shots and booming artillery that severely damaged his hearing.<\/p>\n

&ldquo As a coach, I’m a teacher, so clear communication is really important. I was missing a lot of conversations and couldn’t always hear what my players or colleagues said. Hearing loss was also affecting my speech patterns. I tried all kinds of hearing aids but most ended up in a drawer.,&rdquo said Coach Waufle, who is one of the 35 million Americans with severe hearing loss. The solution to his problem was provided by the team’s ear, nose and throat consultant, Michael Scherl, M.D., with his audiology colleagues. Little more than two years ago, Dr. Scherl was involved in early trial work on a unique new hearing aid called Lyric. It was conceived in Silicon Valley to provide users benefits similar to extended wear contact lenses. Unlike conventional hearing aids that have external microphones and require weekly battery changes, Lyric rests deep in the ear canal. It is invisible, completely self-contained and approximately onehalf inch long. The flexible, foam-covered device rests a fraction of an inch from the eardrum to provide exemplary sound quality while making use of the ear’s natural anatomy to funnel sound. It can operate 24\/7 for up to four months before having to be replaced by an audiologist. &ldquo Since getting Lyric, my quality of life has been so much better,&rdquo said Coach
Waufle. &ldquo For instance, the Giants have a large field house with horrible acoustics. Our head coach recently walked up behind me and I could hear every word he was saying. Before Lyric, that would not have been possible. No matter who you are or what you do, it’s really important to know what your boss&mdash or spouse&mdash is sharing with you. &ldquo Beyond that, the biggest change is I can now hear little things like a pencil on the paper when I’m writing, or a turn signal in my car. My daughter says it’s fun watching TV together because the sound isn’t blaring any more. There are so many things to appreciate that could have easily slipped away.&rdquo Although Lyric represents a unique advance in hearing aid design, technology is advancing elsewhere, too. &ldquo Bluetooth capabilities are being added to a host of new hearing aids,&rdquo said veteran audiologist Richard Kaner of Brooklyn Audiology Associates. &ldquo For instance, Oticon has a device called the Streamer&trade that users wear around the neck. It’s an interface between hearing aids and cell phones, land lines, television sets, MP3 players and computers.&rdquo Other leading manufacturers such as Phonak, Siemens and Bernafon also offer expanded connectivity options. Starkey has been a leader in volume adjustment. Users can touch the back of certain hearing aids to adjust volume, or use the touch pad of their cell phone or land line. Additionally, a number of manufacturers are improving speech understanding by transposing high frequencies to lower frequencies. Philadelphia audiologist Dr. Kathy Landau Goodman, Au.D., of Main Line Audiology agrees the future of hearing aids is extended wear devices like Lyric, and devices that can interface with other technologies such as cell phones. &ldquo The most striking thing for me these past 25 years has been the improvement in sound quality,&rdquo said Dr. Goodman. &ldquo Years ago, we didn’t have great technology. Now we do. One client recently said he feels like he’s gone from a horse and buggy to a luxury car.&rdquo If you or someone you know has difficulty hearing, contact a local audiologist who will partner with you to select an appropriate hearing technology. As Helen Keller wrote, &ldquo Blindness separates us from things but deafness separates us from people.&rdquo Author Dr. Paul Pessis, Au.D., is owner and director of North Shore Audio Vestibular Lab in Chicago, and past president of the American Academy of Audiology.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hearing Aids: The Future Is NowSuper Bowl winner and New York Giants defensive line coach Mike Waufle knows a lot about loud noise. The 54- year old is surrounded by roaring crowds every Sunday during football season. At practice he hears the crack of helmets and sharp clanking of weights. In the early 1970s as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":149,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58779","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/149"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58779"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58779\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}