Protecting Hearing for Life
As a member (retired status) of Speech-Language & Audiology Canada, I was honoured to have my article featured in Communique for World Hearing Day, 2022. The title and content of Protecting Hearing for Life reflects this year’s theme of, “To hear for life, listen with care.” In summary, our modern society exposes us to harmfully […]
Tinnitus & Hyperacusis Emergency Lifelines
This is a list of suicide prevention resources. If you’re struggling with depression or distress and thinking of hurting yourself, you are not alone. There are millions of people around the world trying their best to cope with tinnitus and hyperacusis. Resources include live chat and helplines or lifelines to call or text. If you […]
Too Loud: Nonoccupational Noise Exposure Causes Hearing Loss
In July, my colleague Dr. Daniel Fink and I had two papers accepted for publication in Proceedings of Meetings on Acoustics. Both papers are open access and free to share. The first paper is on noise risk to auditory health from common everyday sound sources that are too loud. This includes movies (including animated and […]
Personal Audio System Use Can Harm Auditory Health
Dr. Daniel Fink and I presented our talk titled Personal Audio System Use Can Harm Auditory Health at the 180th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America. It was presentation 3ANS8 in the June 10, 2021 Non-Occupational Noise and Hearing Loss Session. We reviewed science showing personal listening – especially in children, teens, and young […]
Personal Listening Case Scenario in American Family Physician Journal
I was honoured to co-author this case scenario with Dr. Daniel Fink of The Quiet Coalition. The clinical topic is on making recommendations to patients on how to lower personal listening noise exposure. The goal is preventing hearing system damage in upcoming generations of personal listening users including children, teens, and young adults. Noise-induced hearing […]
Hyperacusis and Gaming Soundtracks
Regular everyday sounds are physically painful for people with hyperacusis or decreased sound tolerance. This means sometimes we need to use hearing protection to cope when other people don’t need any. Sound quality is an important factor. For example, metallic higher pitch sound sources usually hurt more than natural lower pitch sound sources. This means […]
Fake crowd noise poses real health threat
[Originally published at silencity.com] With coronavirus pandemic restrictions on fan attendance, NFL football teams have lost the stadium crowd noise once called a home field secret weapon by the Seattle Seahawks. As a solution, the NFL has developed club and stadium specific crowd-noise audio to use during TV broadcasts. While the TV crowd-noise audio will […]
Safer Personal Listening
With personal listening, it has never been easier to listen to music or audio content whenever and wherever people want. But…science shows personal listening is associated with permanent progressive hearing health damage. The hearing system falls out-of-tune, and there is distortion for pitch and loudness perception. This means people can develop tinnitus, hyperacusis or decreased […]
Reasons Why There Is No Tinnitus Cure Yet
Everybody wants to know the answer: why is there no cure for tinnitus? So it’s not surprising this free open access study on the topic has been shared more than 40,000 times as of April 28, 2020. The authors, including Dr. Baguley of the British Tinnitus Association, point out a key reason. Researchers must do […]
Tinnitus & Hyperacusis Severity Forms
I put together this pdf of commonly used evidence-based tinnitus and hyperacusis severity or distress surveys. They are free to print or share for educational purposes (not for resale). It includes: Tinnitus-Decreased Sound Tolerance Distress Scale (from my book Tinnitus Toolbox Hyperacusis Handbook) Tinnitus and Hearing Survey (10 questions including question on decreased sound tolerance) […]