Hidden Hearing, Ireland’s largest hearing healthcare provider, this week celebrated its 25th birthday in Dublin. Since it opened the branch at 49 Middle Abbey St., Dublin it has been offering customers the best professional hearing care, help and advice. Pictured are Veronica Kelly, Noel Cullen, Branch Manager, Jennifer Berrill and Stephen Leddy, Managing Director of Hidden Hearing.
Newborn screening cuts referral times by over two years
THE TIME taken for detection of hearing loss in babies and follow-up intervention has been cut from 30 months to less than three months since the introduction of a newborn hearing screening programme at Cork University Maternity Hospital a year ago.
More than 8,000 babies have been scanned at the Cork hospital since the programme started in April 2011; of those, 100 were referred for diagnostic assessment.
All babies confirmed with hearing loss were helped or referred for surgical intervention within three months of birth.
Cork University Maternity Hospital was the first hospital in Ireland to implement the national newborn hearing screening programme, which is also now available in St Luke’s General Hospital, Kilkenny, South Tipperary General Hospital, Clonmel, Waterford Regional Hospital and Wexford General Hospital.
The programme is due to be extended to other maternity hospitals in the Republic.
In Ireland, one to two babies in every 1,000 are born with a hearing loss – the majority to families with no history of impaired hearing.
The sooner the problem is identified, the better the outcome will be for those babies’ development of language and communication skills.
In the absence of newborn screening, babies in Ireland do not have their hearing routinely tested until they are nine months old.
The inaccuracy of the so-called “distraction test” used at this stage means higher numbers of children without a problem are referred for further testing, while some with hearing loss are missed out.
The screening service at Cork University Maternity Hospital uses a combination of medical equipment and information technology (IT) that was put in place by Northgate, which works with the National Health Service (NHS) in the UK where there is universal newborn screening for hearing loss.
If you have any questions about this or any hearing issue contact Hidden Hearing at 1800 370000 or online Hidden Hearing.
SHEILA WAYMAN
Source: Irish Times Read More>
Hidden Hearing Promotes Tinnitus Awareness Week
Tinnitus is the perception of a sound that has no external source.
Hidden Hearing is helping to promote Tinnitus Awareness Week – a single week that is set aside to focus specifically on increasing public awareness about tinnitus and most importantly the need for increased funding for tinnitus research. There currently is no known cure for tinnitus. Although it is important to note that a study published in a Hearing Review found that many tinnitus sufferers report that their hearing aids significantly help them with their tinnitus.
Dolores Madden Marketing Manager with Hidden Hearing said “Many people – almost twice as many as previously believed – suffer from persistent, chronic tinnitus. That’s about ten percent of the population. And for people ages 65 to 84, that number jumps to almost 27 percent”. Madden believes that helping “create the awareness” is the first step.
A recent study found that over 40 percent of survey respondents with tinnitus were helped at least mildly with hearing aids. And 3 out of 10 were helped moderately-to-substantially. For those whose where hearing health professionals used best practices in fitting hearing aids, that figure jumped to 50 percent.
Madden believes It is important for the hearing health community to help promote Tinnitus Awareness, especially because relatively few people seek help for their tinnitus – despite the fact that there are effective therapies available, including the use of hearing aids, to help tinnitus sufferers. If you have any questions about tinnitus or any aspect of hearing health contact Hidden Hearing.
92 year old Cork woman gets FREE test!
Hidden Hearing Offers Free Hearing Test and 20% Hearing Aid Discount to 92 year old Cork woman.
Hidden Hearing, Ireland’s leading provider of hearing healthcare today offered a free hearing test to a 92 year old Cork woman who has been told she will have to wait four years for a HSE assessment. Hidden Hearing has also committed to offering the woman a 20% discount if she is found to require a hearing aid. “There is no need for this woman or indeed anyone to be waiting so long for what is a relatively straightforward hearing assessment. Hidden Hearing has been offering this free service for 25 years and we would be delighted to assist this woman or anyone who feels they need a test. Our audiologists are fully qualified to the highest international standards and can provide a full report very quickly – at absolutely no obligation. To have to wait so long for a hearing test is disgraceful”, said Stephen Leddy, Managing Director, Hidden Hearing.
Hidden Hearing provides over 30,000 free full hearing evaluations through its network of 65 branches and clinics nationwide, as well as a further 10,000 free hearing screenings through its mobile clinic which travels to 400 locations around the country annually.
Anyone wishing to avail of a free hearing test through Hidden Hearing should call 1800 370 000 or visit www.hiddenhearing.ie to see where the mobile clinic will be in attendance.
Drug treatments to prevent the onset of tinnitus could soon be developed
The first drug treatments to prevent the onset of tinnitus could soon be developed after doctors discovered how to tone down overactive neurons in the brain.
Researchers from the University Of Leicester have identified a key cellular mechanism that could underlie the development of ringing in the ears following exposure to loud noises.
The discovery could lead to novel tinnitus treatments, and investigations into potential drugs to prevent tinnitus are underway. Although the word tinnitus comes from the Latin for ‘ringing’, the noise can be a buzz, hum or even a whistle – heard in one ear, both ears or in the middle of the head.
For most people the problem is mild, or disappears with time. But for others it can become chronic and almost intolerable. There are currently no drugs available to treat or prevent tinnitus. Scientists have previously speculated that it results from damage to nerve cells connected to the ears.
Lead researcher Dr Martine Hamann said: ‘We need to know the implications of acoustic over-exposure, not only in terms of hearing loss but also what’s happening in the brain and central nervous system.
‘It’s believed that tinnitus results from changes in excitability in cells in the brain – cells become more reactive, in this case more reactive to an unknown sound.’
Dr Hamann and her team looked at cells in an area of the brain called the dorsal cochlear nucleus – the relay carrying signals from nerve cells in the ear to the parts of the brain that decode and make sense of sounds.
Following exposure to loud noises, some of the nerve cells in the dorsal cochlear nucleus start to fire erratically, and this uncontrolled activity eventually leads to tinnitus.
Dr Hamann said: ‘We showed that exposure to loud sound triggers hearing loss a few days after the exposure to the sound. It also triggers this uncontrolled activity in the neurons of the dorsal cochlear nucleus. ’This is all happening very quickly, in a matter of days.’
In a key breakthrough, the team also discovered the specific cellular mechanism that leads to the neurons’ over-activity. Malfunctions in specific potassium channels that help regulate the nerve cell’s electrical activity mean the neurons cannot return to an equilibrium resting state.
Ordinarily, these cells only fire regularly and therefore regularly return to a rest state. However, if the potassium channels are not working properly, the cells cannot return to a rest state and instead fire continuously in random bursts, creating the sensation of constant noise when none exists.
Dr Hamann said: ‘In normal conditions the channel helps to drag down the cellular electrical activity to its resting state and this allows the cell to function with a regular pattern.
‘After exposure to loud sound, the channel is functioning less and therefore the cell is constantly active, being unable to reach its resting state and displaying those irregular bursts.’
Although many researchers have investigated the mechanisms underlying tinnitus, this is the first time that cellular bursting activity has been characterised and linked to specific potassium channels.
Identifying the potassium channels involved in the early stages of tinnitus opens up new possibilities for preventing tinnitus with early drug treatments. Dr Hamann’s team is currently investigating potential drugs that could regulate the damaged cells, preventing their erratic firing and returning them to a resting state.
If suitable drug compounds are discovered, they could be given to patients who have been exposed to loud noises to protect them against the onset of tinnitus.
These investigations are still in the preliminary stages, and any drug treatment would still be years away. The research was published in the journal Hearing Research.
If you have any questions about tinnitus or any other aspect of hearing loss contact Hidden Hearing.
Source: Daily Mail. Read More>
