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Music is noise

Marshall Chasin recaps what we know acoustically about music and noise, and discusses the potentially damaging levels of music, how temporary threshold shift (TTS) is not necessarily temporary and gives us some considerations for protective devices for musicians. Most of...

Lessons from the outcomes of children with hearing loss study

The Outcomes of Children with Hearing Loss (OCHL) study of 300 children with hearing loss has targeted several factors that are under the control of audiologists and parents. Drs McCreery and Walker discuss how these ‘lessons learned’ can lead to...

Middle ear muscle disorders: presentation, diagnosis and management

Patients often report symptoms relating to disorders of the middle ear muscles. Prof Bance gives us an overview of the anatomy and function, as well as guides our diagnosis and management. The middle ear muscles (MEMs) are a mystery, both...

Direct-to-consumer hearing devices: a need to combine cosmetic appeal with device capabilities

How safe and desirable are direct-to-consumer amplification devices? A team has put a range of devices through their paces and compared them to a standard NHS hearing device. Why do most individuals who would benefit from hearing aids not try...

The role of prediction and gain in tinnitus

Dr Will Sedley is a Clinical Academic Neurologist who has done groundbreaking work in the field of tinnitus mechanisms. Here, he introduces and explains the concepts of prediction and of gain as they relate to troublesome tinnitus. This article focuses...

Cognition and hearing – you can’t test one with the other!

Cognitive Psychologist, Boaz M Ben-David, provides insights into the import of considering cognitive factors when assessing speech perception ability to maximise intervention success. Failing to do so, he suggests, is “ageist”, a predisposition healthcare professionals must avoid. Cognitive performance is...

Mobile technologies to support global ear and hearing care

By combining mobile technology with artificial intelligence, more people can access ear and hearing care. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that worldwide, nearly half a billion people have moderate or worse hearing loss [1]. The vast majority of people...

Promoting human rights of deaf communities in low-resource settings

Stigma and misconceptions about deafness are serious impediments for many deaf people to realise rights and potential in some of the most challenging situations globally. Around 430 million people are estimated to live with moderate or higher levels of hearing...

Genetics and the newborn hearing screen: the future is now

Eliot Shearer shares the progress being made with newborn hearing screening 60 years on from where it started, and future directions for identifying hearing loss using physiologic, genetic and cCMV screening. Newborn screening had its birth in the early 1960s,...

Innovative approaches to treating deafness

Shahar Taiber and Karen Avraham give us a summary of gene therapies for hearing loss, with an overview of limitations and what the future holds. Hearing loss is the most common sensory disorder. The last two decades have seen a...