What's that Buzzing?

The so-called mosquito ringtone is a Welsh security company's invention. It is a high-frequency sound that older adults can't hear because of presbycusis. Originally designed for shopkeepers to discourage teen loiterers, the sound was appropriated (allegedly by some enterprising students) and turned into a cell phone ringtone that adults can't hear - a useful feature in setting such as classrooms, where sending and receiving calls and text messages by cell phone is banned.

The ability to hear sounds above 8 kilohertz (kHz) diminishes with age, typically starting in your 40s. The mosquito ringtone is available at ranges between 16.7 and 22.4 kHz, which usually only people younger than age 24 can hear.


from Hearing Health Magazine, Summer 2011

WHAT is in my child's ear?

Top 12 things removed from kids' ears - by Lexi Walters

found on babyzone.com. Find the full article HERE.

Little kids have little ears—but are enormously curious. And the results of their "What if I ..." experiments often land them in the ER. The top docs at Children's Hospital Yale-New Haven know these tendencies well: There's even a collection on display in their waiting room of common items removed from kids' ears.

Here is their list of top repeat extractions:
1. Cotton Swabs
2. Buttons
3. Pen parts
4. Earrings
5. Springs
6. Moths, flies and other flying insects
7. Beetles and bugs
8. Seeds
9. Pits (think: cherry)
10. Peanuts
11. Button batteries (think: HEARING AID BATTERIES!)
12. Erasers

Tinnitus Research Update

Researchers at Georgetown University Medical Center hypothesize that tinnitus may be produced by an unfortunate combination of structural and functional changes in the brain.  According to the study, tinnitus - the phantom ringing heard by about 40 million people in the US today - is caused by brains that try, but fail, to protect their human hosts against overwhelming auditory stimuli. Researchers add that the same process may be responsible for chronic pain and other perceptual disorders.

The researcherrs say that the absence of sound from hearing loss in certain frequencies due to normal aging, loud-noise exposure or an accident, forces the brain to produce sounds to replace what's missing.  Tinnitus results when the brain's limbic system (which is involved in processing emotions and other functions) fails to stop these sounds from reaching conscious auditory pathways.

-----

I liken Tinnitus to a "phantom limb."  When someone loses an arm or a leg, it's common for them to have the sensation that they can still feel that limb - they can feel it moving or feel temperature changes.  Tinnitus is similar. You have lost a part of your hearing, but your brain still has the sensation that sound is still there.  So you are, in essence, getting a false-firing of that hearing nerve - something is triggering a sound when there is not a sound there.

YOU are doing it better!

from The ASHA Leader, February 15, 2011

American adults hear better than their grandparents did at the ame age, according to a study in the December 2010 Ear and Hearing.

Researchers compared hearing data from two national surveys (1959-1962 and 1999-2004) and discovered that men and women todya across the age spectrum have better hearign then their counterparts decades earlier, primarily in the higher frequencies (2000-6000Hz), although hearing in the middle frequency of 1000Hz was roughly the same.

Although the cause for improvement is not clear, researchers noted a viariety of possible factors, including fewer perople who smoke, better health care for people with diabetes and cardiovascular disease, and better care for childhood otitis media.

In addition, vaccines developed in the intervening years protect children from rubella and meningitis. Researchers also noted a decline in noisy manufacturing jobs and an increase in workplace hearing consrvation programs.

Audiology Brief: Hearing in the Big Apple

(As published in AHSA Leader Magazine, December 21, 2010)

The crowded streets of Manhattan may give visitors a thrill, but they also may put New Yorkers at risk for hearing loss, according to a study released at the International Conference on Urban Health at the New York Academy of Medicine.

Researchers wore monitors that measured noise levels near their ears at 60 Manhattan sites selected from data on noise complaints called into a city hotline.  Measurements were taken from 9am to 5pm on weekdays.

Most readings were above 70 decibels. People whose daily noise exposure tops an average of 70 decibels can lose some of their hearing over time, said Richard Neitzel, a University of Washington research scientist and one of the study's authors.

Some of Manhattan's noisiest spots were along the city's truck routes, but the city's quietest neighborhoods also were the source of come of the highest numbers of noise complaints.  For example, the residents of the Lower East Side, East Village, and West Village may live closer to ground level with fewer buffers between them and street noise. For more information about the conference, visit www.nyam.org/icuh2010.