Monthly Archives: December 2016

Holidays and Hearing Loss: How to enjoy the sounds of the season

December 22, 2016

Holidays and Hearing Loss: How to enjoy the sounds of the season

For many people with hearing loss, the holidays can be especially challenging. While large family gatherings offer a great chance to catch up with friends and family, holiday parties can lead to challenging listening situations for people with hearing loss.

Here are some tips for people with hearing loss to better enjoy holiday gatherings.

Holidays and hearing loss: The tips

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  1. Find a quiet corner – Stand away from loudspeakers and noisy kitchens and position yourself in the quietest area of the room. This way you can hear conversation rather than noise.
  2. Pick your seat – If you’re having a sit-down dinner, pick a seat at the center of the table nearest to a close friend or relative. This way you have a better chance of hearing conversation and enjoying your meal.
  3. Pick your drink – A glass of wine can make you more relaxed – or it can confuse you and make your level of understanding worse. Be aware of what you are drinking and your own level of tolerance.
  4. Buddy up – Find a friend or relative with whom you can hang out at the party. This person can help you to feel more included in conversation and can repeat things you may not understand.

Have the “hearing loss” conversation

Holiday gatherings are a good time to have “the conversation” with friends and loved ones. We’re talking about the conversation about hearing loss and getting hearing aids. If you think your loved one is unable to hear correctly, take out your phone or tablet and encourage them to take an online hearing test. This is a great first step to help someone realize he has a hearing loss.

Help guests with hearing loss

You might not have hearing loss – but one of your guests might. Here are some tips on helping your guests with hearing loss enjoy your party”

  • Background music – Everyone loves a good Christmas carol, but when those carols are in the background of the conversations of 20+ people, no one can hear them anyways. Consider turning down the background music – or turning it off completely when several guests are socializing at once. People tend to speak louder to be heard over the music, so your music may in fact make the party louder.
  • Dish Duty – Hold off on cleaning the dishes until after your guests have left. For people with hearing loss, the clatter of kitchen dishes can distract from dinnertime conversation. Take time to enjoy your guests rather than worrying about the clean-up!
  • Seating – If you know that one of your guests has a hearing loss, seat that person at the center of the table closest to those with the quietest voices. It may also help if you sit next to that person, so you can help him or her to better understand the conversation.

Learn More 

FROM ALL OF US AT PROTECTEAR,

HAPPY HOLIDAYS AND A PROSPEROUS 2017!

Happy Holiday

Please Note:

The office will be closed from Dec 26, 2016 – Jan 2, 2017.  

Could a common cold affect your hearing? Sensorineural Hearing Loss

December 13, 2016

Could a common cold affect your hearingsensorial hearing loss

Tis the season to be sick, achy and congested.

It’s that time of year where many of us carry a pack of tissues in our pocket and constantly smell of vapour rub and cough sweets as we attempt to rid ourselves of the common cold.

You might feel terrible for a week or so as you soldier on, sniffing and sneezing and trying to sleep with blocked sinuses but in the end, the cold clears up and you’re back to your normal self. Sometimes though, it can have a lasting effect.

Even the common cold can effect your hearing!

We expect to catch colds every year but many of us do not consider just how seriously we should take them. They are viruses, after all, and can quickly develop into something quite serious, especially if our health is already not at its best.

Fluid buildup from a cold can have a lasting effect as it develops and presses on your inner ear and damages the fine hairs or nerves in the cochlea – resulting in permanent or partial hearing loss if left for too long. This is called sensorineural hearing loss and is often missed by GPs, as musician and composer Michael Berkeley discovered after suffering from a cold and hearing loss and was repeatedly told it would clear of its own accord.

infections are also another common development when suffering with a cold and are usually treated easily with antibiotics. But it is important that if you are poorly and start experiencing any of the symptoms below that you go to your doctor immediately to prevent any permanent damage being done:

  • Dizziness
  • Earache
  • Feeling of pressure in the head
  • Loss of hearing in one or both ears or muffled hearing

If you are experiencing these symptoms as a side effect of a cold, it won’t hurt to pay a visit to one of our shops to have a free hearing test completed and put your mind at rest. Read More. 

Sensorineural Hearing Losssensorial hearing loss

Muffled hearing can be relatively common when you have a cold or the flu, but occasionally auditory issues can become more serious. “Sensorineural hearing loss is a type of hearing loss that stems from the inability to convert vibrations in the inner ear into nerve signals that travel to the brain,” says Amesh A. Adalja, MD, adjunct instructor in the division of infectious diseases and clinical assistant professor in the departments of critical care and emergency medicine at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.

Symptoms can include swelling, congestion, and pressure. Much less often, hearing loss can occur. Treatment sometimes consists of oral steroids, though more research needs to be done on their effectiveness. Many people simply recover on their own as their cold or flu symptoms improve.

However, any sort of hearing loss should be a red flag to see a health care provider. Learn more. 

 

 

 

Modifying Your Work Environments for Safe Noise Exposure

December 1, 2016

Modifying Your Work Environments for Safe Noise Exposure

As an Owner or Employee who oversees your workplace environment for safety, have you also investigated how you can reduce hazardous noise in those work environments? What are some ways you can effectively modify your work environments for safe noise exposure?

The 1st Step should be understanding the impact noise exposure has on your workers, staff and visitors entering the workplace area.

Beside considering the noise exposure of your associates and the potential noise induced hearing loss (NIHL), consider the effect noise has on their stress and therefore their safety.  Recognizing the high impact that noise will have on many different levels to your workers can help you introduce the correct measures and the degree of importance to ensure these measures are introduced and what time frames they are introduced in.

What are your regulatory levels for noise safety levels?

Understanding accurately your regulatory levels and reporting requirements will allow your enhanced compliance and safety for your workers. What are your company standards for noise safety levels? Do you plan to exceed the regulatory recommendations and provide even safer levels? Do you also factor in the time exposure as safety levels are set in accordance with the amounts of time exposure permitted at certain levels? Do you have an accurate time clock practice to ensure that workers on longer shifts or shifts that may overlap 24 hour periods are still falling within the safety parameters? Do you also have a way to determine the exposure of visitors or workers who travel within different areas of noise exposure?

Assessing your work environments.Hearing conservation

Assessing your various work environments from many factors will ensure a much more accurate safety level. Assessing:

  1. Your current machinery and other equipment used for their sound levels.
  2. What new modifications exist or can be created for your current machinery or equipment?
  3. What new equipment is available on the market that may impact your decision to possibly replace equipment?
  4. Your worker’s exposure to noise – are there other options such as physical sound barriers that could be implemented in certain work areas?
  5. How you measure noise levels – are noise levels being correctly determined by the noise measuring tools you use and are you correctly measuring under differing conditions that may impact how those noise levels are recorded?
  6. The possibility of isolating a noise source to an area that will limit the amount of people exposed to that noise.
  7. Regular maintenance and check up of equipment and machinery to eliminate or diminish noise based on improperly functioning equipment.
  8. The work area where the noise takes place. Is this an enclosed area that may need or be able to have sound muffling measures added? Is this an open area where sound may travel with less precision or under differing weather or environmental conditions? For example, working on a road crew in an area that has cliffs or in a valley setting where noise can boomerang and creating even higher noise levels vs a stretch of road that is open and flat may produce very different levels of noise exposure to your workers.
  9. Your warning postings in areas of high levels of noise or warning posting devices if machinery is turned on that suddenly creates a new level of noise.

Assessing your training and compliance of your workers in high noise levels areas. Below are some key questions regarding noise exposure. hearing protection

  • Do your workers understand the concerns to their hearing health from NIHL?
  • Have they been supplied the proper information to protect their hearing while on the job?
  • If they use personal hearing protection devices, are they properly fitted and appropriate for the noise levels they may be exposed to? Are they being worn?
  • Does your company supply frequent assessments of both the workers hearing and the protection device they wear? Does your company provide your workers the appropriate device for their personal use?

 

There are many ways that you can ensure and increase the noise safety in your workplace environment creating a win-win environment for all. Learn more about personal hearing protection and Fit Check Training.