Holiday Observances

Our offices will be closed the following days in observance of the Holidays:

Saturday, December 24

(affects Toledo office only)

Monday, December 26

(affects Toledo and Bowling Green offices)

Saturday, December 31

(affects Toledo office only)

Monday, January 2nd

(affects Toledo and Bowling Green offices)

We hope that you all have a very safe and happy holiday season!

Do You Hear What I Hear?

Released: 12/9/2011 2:15 PM EST 
Source: House Research Institute via Newswise

The Sounds of the Holidays Can Help a Person Recognize Hearing Loss

Newswise — Los Angeles, CA – December 9, 2011 – Jingle bells, carols, and holiday greetings are all the sounds that help make the holiday season special. But, those holiday sounds also give people an opportunity to recognize if they are having trouble hearing. According to the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD), of the 36 million American adults who report having a hearing loss, an estimated 26 million of them between the ages of 20 and 69 have a high-frequency hearing loss caused by too much exposure to loud sound.

Noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL) is usually painless, progressive, permanent, and completely preventable. NIHL happens when a person is exposed for too long of a time to sound pressure levels of 85 decibels or more, resulting in damage to the sensory hair cells of the inner ear. It can be the result of exposing your ears to a sudden, intense impulse noise like an explosion or gunfire or extended or repeated exposure to loud machinery and recreational activities, such as loud music and video.

The process is so gradual that people often do not realize they have a hearing loss until it affects the ability to carry on conversations in daily life. With NIHL softer high frequency sounds are difficult to hear, which means a person can hear what is said but they cannot understand what is said.

How can people recognize if they have noise induced hearing loss?

“When a person frequently has trouble understanding conversations at holiday parties, family gatherings, and in noisy restaurants it might be a good time for a hearing test and ear examination,” said John W. House, MD, president of House Research Institute and physician at the House Clinic. “We recommend for people to pay close attention to how well they can hear in different situations.”

The holidays give family and friends the opportunity to notice a change in a loved one’s hearing as well. People with hearing loss may have trouble participating in conversations because they miss key words.

“We hear from our patients that they first noticed a change in their hearing several years before they finally come in to the House Clinic to have their hearing checked,” said Dr. House. “Often it is a spouse or family member who urges a patient to get their hearing tested.”

Physicians in the House Clinic recommend patients come in for a hearing test at the first sign of a change. There are some forms of hearing loss, which are not noise-induced, that can be treated with surgery to restore the patient’s hearing. The sooner a hearing loss is identified, the sooner the patient can learn about the treatment options that may help.

If you know someone who is having trouble hearing, you can help give the gift of hearing by encouraging them to schedule a hearing test as well as by supporting the research and education programs of the House Research Institute to improve hearing loss treatments and knowledge of hearing loss and related disorders. For more information, log on to www.houseresearch.org.

In 2006, House Research Institute launched the nation’s first NIHL prevention education initiative focused on encouraging safe hearing choices among teens and young adults, called It’s How You Listen That Counts®. To learn more, visitwww.earbud.org.

About the House Research Institute

The House Research Institute, formerly the House Ear Institute, is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to improving the quality of life for people with hearing loss and related disorders through scientific research, patient care, and the sharing of knowledge. Institute scientists research the auditory system, at the level of function, as well as at the cellular, molecular and genetic levels. We also explore the neurological interactions between the auditory system and brain, and study ways to improve auditory implants, diagnostics, clinical treatments and intervention methods. We share our knowledge with the scientific and medical communities as well as the general public through our education and outreach programs. For more information about the House Research Institute, please call (800) 388-8612 or (213) 483-4431, E-mail info@hei.org or visitwww.houseresearch.org. 

Just for FUN!

1. Maine is the only state whose name is just one syllable.
2. Many hamsters only blink one eye at a time.
3. Mel Blanc (the voice of Bugs Bunny) was allergic to carrots.
4. Millie the White House dog earned more than 4 times as much as President Bush in 1991.
5. Money isn't made out of paper, it's made out of cotton.
6. Montpelier, VT is the only U.S. state capital without a McDonalds.
7. More Monopoly money is printed in a year, than real money printed throughout the world.
8. More people are killed annually by donkeys than die in air crashes.
9. More people use blue toothbrushes than red ones.
10. Mosquitoes have teeth.
11. Most Americans' car horns beep in the key of F.
12. Most cows give more milk when they listen to music.
13. Most dust particles in your house are made from dead skin.
14. Most lipstick contains fish scales.
15. Mr. Rogers is an ordained minister.
16. Murphy's Oil Soap is the chemical most commonly used to clean elephants.

Just for Fun!

1. John Lennon's first girlfriend was named Thelma Pickles.
2. "Kemo Sabe" means "soggy shrub" in Navajo.
3. Kotex was first manufactured as bandages, during WWI.
4. Lee Harvey Oswald's cadaver tag sold at an auction for $6,600 in 1992.
5. Leonardo Da Vinci invented the scissors.
6. Lightning strikes about 6,000 times per minute on this planet.
7. Like fingerprints, everyone's tongue print is different.
8. Lincoln Logs were invented by Frank Lloyd Wright's son.
9. Lorne Greene had one of his nipples bitten off by an alligator while he was host of "Lorne Greene's Wild Kingdom."
10. Los Angeles's full name is "El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de los Angeles de Porciuncula" and can be abbreviated to 3.63% of its original size: "L.A."

An Apple a Day...

Fruits and vegetables are healthy-but those with white flesh may protect against stroke.  Researches examined stroke incidence in 20,069 adults as compared with participates' responses eto a 178-item food frequency assessment for the previous year.  The risk of stroke incidents was 52% lower for people who ate more white fruits and vegetables.

Article HERE.

Battery Special...going on NOW!

Right now 8 and 16 packs of batteries, of all sizes, are on sale in our office.

Buy 3 packs, get 1 free!

Buy 3 - 8 packs of batteries for $30, get one free!

You save $10 and get a total of 32 batteries.

Buy 3 - 16 packs of batteries for $54, get one free!

You save $18 and get at total of 72 batteries.

*sizes 10 (yellow), 312 (brown), 13 (orange) and 675 (blue) all available.
Makes great stocking stuffers!

Just for Fun!

• Isaac Asimov is the only author to have a book in every Dewey-decimal category.
• It takes a lobster approximately seven years to grow to be one pound.
• It takes about a half a gallon of water to cook macaroni, and about a gallon to clean the pot.
• It was discovered on a space mission that a frog can throw up. The frog throws up its stomach first, so the stomach is dangling out of its mouth. Then the frog uses its forearms to dig out all of the stomach's contents and then swallows the stomach back down again.
• It was once against the law to have a pet dog in a city in Iceland.
• It was once against the law to slam your car door in a city in Switzerland.
• It's against the law to burp, or sneeze in a certain church in Omaha, Nebraska.
• It's against the law to catch fish with your bare hands in Kansas.
• It's impossible to sneeze with your eyes open. (Don't try this at home!)
• Ivory bar soap floating was a mistake. They had been overmixing the soap formula causing excess air bubbles that made it float. Customers wrote and told how much they loved that it floated, and it has floated ever since.

Just for Fun!

• In Bangladesh, kids as young as 15 can be jailed for cheating on their finals.
• In England, in the 1880's, "Pants" were considered a dirty word.
• In England, the Speaker of the House is not allowed to speak.
• In every episode of "Seinfeld" there is a Superman somewhere.
• In Kentucky, 50 percent of the people who get married for the first time are teenagers.
• In Los Angeles, there are fewer people than there are automobiles.
• In most advertisements, including newspapers, the time displayed on a watch is 10:10.
• In space, astronauts cannot cry, because there is no gravity, so the tears can't flow.
• In the 1940s, the FCC assigned television's Channel 1 to mobile services (two-way radios in taxicabs, for instance) but did not re-number the other channel assignments. That is why your TV set has channels 2 and up, but no channel 1.
• In the great fire of London in 1666 half of London was burnt down but only 6 people were injured.
• In the last 4000 years, no new animals have been domesticated.
• In the movie "Casablanca," Humphrey Bogart never said "Play it again, Sam."
• In the White House, there are 13,092 knives, forks and spoons.
• In Tokyo, they sell toupees for dogs.

Although many people talk about hearing loss in terms of percentage, it is not an appropriate or meaningful measure of hearing loss.

Hearing is tested across many different frequencies or pitches, from low-pitched sounds like thunder all the way up to high pitches, like a whistle.  It is very common to have more hearing loss at some frequencies than for others. Therefore, even if it were it possible to quantify hearing loss by percentage, for some people the percentage of hearing loss would be different at each test frequency, making it virtually meaningless when describing the overall hearing loss.

Hearing loss is not measured in percentages, except in specific legal situations where decibels of hearing loss are converted via a recognized legal formula to create a "percentage of hearing loss" for legal purposes only.

The generally recognized categories of hearing loss are as follows:

Degree of Hearing loss Audiometric Thresholds
:: Normal hearing: 0 to 2 dB HL
:: Mild hearing loss 21 to 40 dB HL
:: Moderate hearing loss 41 to 60 dB HL
:: Severe hearing loss 61 to 90 dB HL
:: Profound hearing loss greater than 91 dB HL

Note that the term "audiometric threshold" refers to the lowest sound level that a person is able to hear at a specific frequency.  The higher the threshold, the worse that person's hearing is.

It is important to realize that the degree of hearing loss does not necessarily reflect the impact the hearing loss has on someone’s life. A mild hearing loss can be significantly handicapping for some people, while a moderate hearing loss may not have a great impact on someone else. An individual's lifestyle, support system, and feelings about the hearing loss strongly affect its impact, even more so than the clinical diagnosis.

Just for Fun!

• "I am." is the shortest complete sentence in the English language.
• If a statue in the park of a person on a horse has both front legs in the air, the person died in battle; if the horse has one front leg in the air, the person died as a result of wounds received in battle; if the horse has all four legs on the ground, the person died of natural causes.
• If NASA sent birds into space they would soon die; they need gravity to swallow.
• If you bring a raccoon's head to the Henniker, New Hampshire town hall, you are entitled to receive $.10 from the town.
• If you have three quarters, four dimes, and four pennies, you have $1.19. You also have the largest amount of money in coins without being able to make change for a dollar.
• If you toss a penny 10,000 times, it will not be heads 5,000 times, but more like 4,950. The heads picture weighs more, so it ends up on the bottom.
• If your eyes are six feet above the surface of the ocean, the horizon will be about three statute miles away.
• In 1980, a Las Vegas hospital suspended workers for betting on when patients would die.
• In 1980, there was only one country in the world with no telephones - Bhutan.
• In 1983, a Japanese artist made a copy of the Mona Lisa completely out of toast.
• In 1984, a Canadian farmer began renting ad space on his cows.
• In 75% of American households, women manage the money and pay the bills.