Hearing Persons Research Articles

Characterization of Protection Mechanisms to Blast Overpressure for Personal Hearing Protection Devices - Biomechanical Measurement and Computational Modeling.

Hearing damage induced by blast exposure is a common injury in military personnel involved in most operation activities. Personal hearing protection devices such as earplugs come as a standard issue for Service members; however, it is not clear how to accurately evaluate the protection mechanisms of different hearing protection devices for blast overpressures (BOP). This paper reports a recent study on characterization of earplugs' protective function to BOP using human cadaver ears and 3D finite element (FE) model of the human ear. The cadaver ear mounted with pressure sensors near the eardrum (P1) and inside the middle ear (P2) and with an earplug inserted was exposed to BOP in the blast test chamber. P1, P2, and BOP at the ear canal entrance (P0) were simultaneously recorded. The measured P0 waveform was then applied at the ear canal entrance in the FE model and the P1 and P2 pressures were derived from the model. Both experiments and FE modeling resulted in the P1 reduction which represents the effective protection function of the earplug. Different earplugs showed variations in pressure waveforms transmitted to the eardrum, which determine the protection level of earplugs.

Centers for Disease Control and prevention efforts to increase awareness and prevention of noise-induced hearing loss

For 45 years, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has researched noise induced hearing loss (NIHL) in the workplace and disseminated its research to prevent occupational hearing loss. Additionally, CDC has made research and educational materials available on hearing loss in children. In 2015, CDC received inquiries from the public and medical community about NIHL in non-workplace settings. In response, CDC began efforts to raise public awareness of NIHL and awareness about how to prevent its health effects. A CDC intra-agency working group collaborated with the World Health Organization, the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders and the Dangerous Decibels® program for the promotion of the materials including (1) MMWR Vital Signs: Noise-Induced Hearing Loss Among Adults—United States 2011–2012; (2) CDC Public Health Grand Rounds: Promoting Hearing Health Across the Lifespan; (3) World Hearing Day educational materials; and (4) MMWR: Use of Personal Hearing Protection Devices at Loud Athletic or Entertainment Events Among Adults — United States, 2018. Additionally, CDC scientists and communicators continue to leverage internal and external channels for developing materials and spreading the word about the prevention of NIHL at work, at home and in communities.

Legal and practical aspects of access to health care for persons with hearing loss in selected European countries

Legal and practical aspects of access to health care for persons with hearing loss in selected European countriesThe article presents the outcomes of legal research combined with quantitative and qualitative re­search review concerning access to health care for people with hearing loss in selected European countries: United Kingdom, Federal Republic of Germany and Republic of Poland. The main ob­jective was to verify if and how this issue, especially communication and access to information, is solved in different legal systems. Secondly, by comparing the established legal framework in each country with available data on actual quality of healthcare provision, it was assessed whether any regularities between the chosen models of regulating rights of people with hearing loss and real-life adjustments for those patients can be detected. The objective scope of the research includes any type of hearing loss which affects spoken language communication, that is not only d/Deaf but also deafblind and hard of hearing persons, if only their primary and/or preferred way of communication is the not-spoken one. The main findings of the performed analysis are that key sources of barriers in access to healthcare are the lack of awareness on the side of both patients regarding their rights and healthcare providers specificity of hearing impairments and the fact that enhancements in the professional status of sign language interpreters and other communication assistants are needed.

An fMRI-study on single-sided deafness: Spectral-temporal properties and side of stimulation modulates hemispheric dominance.

ObjectiveOur main aim was to investigate the blood oxygenation level dependent (BOLD) response to monaural and binaural speech- and non-speech stimuli as measured with fMRI in subjects with single-sided deafness and in normal hearing controls. We hypothesised that the response to monaural stimulation in both normal hearing subjects and persons with single-sided deafness would vary with the complexity and nature of the stimuli and the side of stimulation.DesignPatients with left- and right single-sided deafness and controls with normal hearing receiving either binaural or monaural stimuli were tested using speech and non-speech auditory stimuli in an event-related fMRI experiment.Study sampleTwenty-two patients with single-sided deafness after treatment for vestibular schwannoma and 50 normal hearing controls.ResultsNormal hearing persons receiving right side monaural stimuli activate bilateral temporal regions. Activation following left side monaural stimulation is more right lateralized. Persons with single-sided deafness respond similarly to controls to monaural stimulation. Persons with right side single-sided deafness show activation of frontal cortical regions not seen in persons with left side single-sided deafness following speech stimuli. This is possibly related to increased effort and more frequently reported problems with communication. Right side single-sided deafness is related to increased activation of areas usually related to processing of degraded input, including the thalamus.ConclusionHemispheric dominance following monaural auditory stimulation is modulated by the spectral-temporal properties of the stimuli and by which ear is stimulated. Differences between patients with right- and left side deafness suggests that right side deafness is related to increased activation of areas involved in processing of degraded input.

ATLASLang MTS 1: Arabic Text Language into Arabic Sign Language Machine Translation System

Arabic Sign Language (ArSL) is a visual language used by deaf Arabs and some hard of hearing to translate their thinking. It is a language in its own right as well as spoken languages such as Arabic or English. It is produced by body, face, and gestures of the hands. Hundreds of thousands of deaf people around the world currently practice it. Each country has its own sign language that deaf people use so it is not universal, but deaf people from different countries communicate easily with each other after a short period of adaptation. This communication becomes difficult when a deaf want to communicate with a normal person with no interpreter available. In this way, building a translation system that can generate real-time statements via a signing avatar is helpful. The system to be developed is a machine translation system from Arabic text to the Arabic sign language, it will allow hearing persons to communicate more easily, using a text written in Arabic by normal person, with people suffering from hard hearing and knowing only sign language. The system must perform a morpho-syntactic analysis of the text in the input and convert it to video sequences phrases playing by a 3D human avatar who expresses the usual signs used by deaf people. In this paper, we present a first version of our machine translation system ATLASLang MTS 1 based on rule-based Interlingua and example-based approaches. It uses SAFAR Platform [11] and ALKHALIL morpho system [1] to extract the morphological properties of each word of the input sentence. Then it generates a video sequence representing the sentence in Arabic sign language based on well-established translation rules and the database of signs. During the translation, if a word of sentence is a proper noun or does not have a correspondence in the database, it will be finger spelled. The main constraint imposed by our machine translation system is the assumption that the sentence given in the input must be completely vowelized.

Tożsamość społeczno-kulturowa a samoocena osób głuchych z implantem ślimakowym komunikujących się w języku polskim fonicznym – badanie wstępne

The sociocultural identity of deaf people is usually described in terms of the four dimensions in which it may be experienced, indicated by, among other things, the identification of deaf persons with hearing persons (the dimension: hearing), neither deaf nor hearing persons (the dimension: marginal), d/Deaf people (the dimension: deafness), both d/Deaf and hearing persons (the dimension: bicultural). We ask the questions: what is the sociocultural identity of deaf persons with a cochlear implant (CI), and is there a relationship between the sociocultural identity of a deaf person and self-esteem and other variables, including sociodemographic ones. The study involved 28 persons, prelingually deaf, aged between 18 and 40 years, highly competent in the spoken Polish language. The Deaf Identity Development Scale (N. Glickman), the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale and the Information Questionnaire were used in the study. The results show that deaf persons with a CI experience themselves as “bicultural” and “hearing” to the greatest extent, and decreased self-esteem is related only to those experiencing a “marginal” identity, that is, they lack a feeling of identity and belonging to both d/Deaf and hearing people.

COMPENSATORY MECHANISMS ESTABLISHMENT IN PIANO TRAINING OF PERSONS WITH SPECIAL EDUCATIONAL NEEDS (SEN) - APPROACH, METHODS, RESULTS

From the point of view of music pedagogy piano education is aimed at achieving artistic and aesthetic results. In the light of art pedagogy piano training must be examined as a complicated, interactive process that supports personality development in people with special educational needs (SEN) and solves multiple problems related to pedagogy and therapy. The education and development of a person with SEN can be realized only in a specific pedagogical context if developed ways of difficulties compensation exist. Through the universal language of art (in this case - the music), a non-verbal creative interaction between a teacher and a trainee takes place which facilitates the development of comprehensive methods for overcoming mental, sensory, communicative and physical difficulties. The individual piano training of people with special educational needs is an active cognitive, creative, emotional and motor activity, where compensatory mechanisms for correction and balancing of disabilities, disorders, deficits in students are established - one of the main aims of art pedagogy. It (the piano training) stimulates the individual with SEN through external mechanisms - intensive pedagogical support, providing necessary environment for the learning process to be conducted, using specially adapted tools for this purpose. The ultimate objective of the external support is the student to mobilize their inner mental, emotional, intellectual abilities and physical strengths by learning to cope independently and creatively with arising difficulties - on the grounds of their undamaged senses and methods offered by the teacher which to be jointly worked out and independently applied. The development of compensatory mechanisms is not a spontaneous but totally systematic process, where the pedagogue plays a role of primary significance, the pedagogue shall obtain certain qualities - professional knowledge and skills, innovative spirit and profound understanding of the peculiarities and difficulties of their students with special educational needs. The results of such training having multiple aspects are complex: improved psycho-emotional state of the student, delight of the achievement, willingness to participate actively in creative activities, increased self-esteem and self-respect, overcoming the uncertainty and social adaptation. Piano training is possible and proved to be useful for a large number of blind and partially-sighted persons, hard of hearing persons, students with mental, speech and motor activity difficulties. The creation and improvement of methodologies for persons with special educational needs is a contribution to the pedagogical science and implementation of humanistic ideals in practice.

Barriers to the use of health services among deaf and hard of hearing adults in Greece: a Cross-Sectional Study

Rationale, Aims and Objectives: To explore the issues related to the use of health services by deaf and hard of hearing adults in Greece.Method: The study population consisted of 140 adults with hearing loss (86 deaf and 54 hard of hearing). We gathered information about sociodemographic characteristics, use of health services characteristics, satisfaction from health providers and complaints during the use of health services.Results: A considerable percentage of the participants did not make appropriate use of healthcare services, as they made avoidable visits to emergency departments even for minor, short-term conditions (p=0.002) or used to just wait for the symptoms to pass in an illness occurrence (p=0.06). They also experienced major difficulties as part of the health visit (p=0.01) and the quality of communication with health providers (p=0.002). The absence of assistive technology, along with the lack of low availability of Sign Language interpreters, were important barriers for those that communicate in Sign Language. Regarding the engagement with healthcare providers, there were high rates of dissatisfaction from doctors, nurses and receptionists related to issues during the use of health services.Conclusions: Our results underscore the fact that deaf and hard of hearing persons constitute a minority population that experience major barriers during the use of health services and considerable difficulties in the healthcare provider-patient relationship. In light of these findings, a special effort must be made to ensure that deaf and hard of hearing individuals receive appropriate, ethical and person-centered healthcare.

Longitudinal changes in hearing threshold levels for noise-exposed military personnel.

Military personnel are exposed to variable and sometimes very high noise in their professional environment. The aim of this study is to evaluate through a longitudinal study if our hearing conservation program has to be adapted to consider specific interventions for subgroups of our military population still subject to a higher risk of hearing loss. We conducted a retrospective longitudinal study in 2015-2016 to describe the evolution of hearing threshold levels of military personnel as measured during periodic audiometric screening over a period of 6years (2009-2014) after the implementation of our hearing conservation program. A linear mixed model explored the relationship of pure-tone average (PTA) on 3, 4 and 6KHz with probability of noise exposure, gender, age at baseline, time since baseline, hearing loss at baseline and ear. For 18,672 military individuals, our results show a small but statistically significant increase of 0.08dB per year in PTA on 3, 4 and 6KHz over the 6-year period that is consistently decelerating as a function of time. An additional annual increase of hearing thresholds due to higher age and moderate and high probability of exposure to noise was also found. No major adaptation of our hearing conservation program is required but efforts should be strengthened to better evaluate and counsel older individuals and subjects exposed to noise regarding avoidance of noise and correct use of personal hearing protection.

"Our Fires As Light": Exploring Stigma of Mental Illness at the Recovery Center.

"Our Fires As Light": Exploring Stigma of Mental Illness at the Recovery Center.

Use of Personal Hearing Protection Devices at Loud Athletic or Entertainment Events Among Adults - United States, 2018.

Tens of millions of U.S. residents have a range of adverse health outcomes caused by noise exposure (1). During 2011-2012, 21 million U.S. adults who reported no exposure to loud or very loud noise at work exhibited hearing damage suggestive of noise-induced hearing loss (2). In addition to the known risk for hearing damage, nonauditory adverse health outcomes and health risks from excessive environmental sound exposure can include effects on the cardiovascular system, metabolism, blood pressure, body weight, cognition, sleep, mental health, quality of life, and overall well-being (1,3,4). CDC analyzed a representative sample of the U.S. adult population (aged ≥18 years) from a 2018 national marketing survey (50 states and the District of Columbia) that included questions about use of hearing protection devices (HPDs) (e.g., ear plugs or ear muffs) during recreational exposure to loud athletic and entertainment events; approximately 8% of respondents reported consistent use of an HPD at these types of events. Among those adults more likely to wear an HPD, 63.8% had at least some college education, and 49.1% had higher income levels. Women and older adults were significantly less likely to use HPDs. These findings suggest a need to strengthen a public health focus on the adverse health effects of excessive noise exposure at home and in recreational settings as well as a need for continued efforts to raise public awareness about the protective value of HPDs.

Wireless communication between personal electronic devices and hearing aids using high frequency audio and ultrasound.

Hearing aids continue to be the main intervention for hearing loss but ease of use and control is of concern due to the small size of these aids. While technological advances in Bluetooth Low Energy have allowed for improved wireless control, in particular between personal electronic devices, its use for communication with hearing aids is problematic due to limited battery life. This paper outlines the implementation of acoustic wireless communication between personal electronic devices and hearing aids using On-Off Keying (OOK) and Frequency Shift Keying (FSK) between the frequencies of 16 and 20 kHz. Reliable communication with bit error rates less than 10-3 were achieved for OOK with maximum data signalling rates of 50, 35.7, and 27.8 bits per second (bps) obtained over 1, 2, and 3 metres respectively, while FSK provided maximum data signalling rates of 83.3, 50, and 27.8 bps over the same distances.

Non-Occupational Noise-Induced Hearing Loss - an Emerging Epidemics: Current Status and Prevention Strategies

Noise is the most common preventable cause of hearing loss, the third most common chronic physical condition in the U.S. Sources of noise in the community and the numbers of those attending loud events, have increased in recent decades. As this preventable hearing loss often progresses insidiously for years before being self-perceived or diagnosed, it underscores the need for improving the availability of public health information for individuals and their healthcare providers. In early 2016 the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) formed a small unfunded intra-agency workgroup to address the issues of non-occupational noise-induced hearing loss. The vision of this workgroup is to provide data and education, increase awareness and prevent noise-related hearing loss at home and in the community.We analyzed audiometric and health survey data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys (NHANES) 2007-2010 and 2011-2012. We estimated prevalence of audiometric notches as indicators for hearing damage. We found that 17% of US adolescents (12 to 19 years old) and 24% of US adults have audiometric notches. The presence of noise-induced hearing loss increased from one in five among young adults aged 20–29 years to one in four among adults aged 50–59 years. The prevalence rate of audiometric notches for females increased from 16% in the 2005-2006 survey to 20% in 2007-2010, and are now higher than in males. Almost one in four adults who reported excellent to good hearing already have measurable hearing loss. About 20 million American adults have hearing damage indicative of noise expose that may likely be due to everyday activities in their home and community. Prevention steps include avoidance and keeping noise down, as well as using personal hearing protection devices. CDC is also encouraging primary care providers and other clinicians, especially those involved in primary care, to ask about difficulty with hearing as part of routine care.

Aktualne tendencje w wyborze formy kształcenia uczniów z uszkodzonym słuchem w obecnym systemie oświatowym w Polsce

The aim of this article is to present changes in the education of deaf and hard of hearing persons over the last 7 years. The trends in the education of children with hearing impairment clearly point to the departure from special forms of education in favour of public education and integration. These changes, however, are a challenge for both teachers, parents and students with hearing impairment.

Enhancing speech intelligibility in reverberant spaces by a speech features distributions dependent pre-processing

In this paper, we deal with a pre-processing based on speech envelope modulation for intelligibility enhancement in reverberant large dimension public enclosed spaces. In fact, the blurring effect due to reverberation alters the speech perception in such conditions. This phenomenon results from the masking of consonants by the reverberated tails of the previous vowels. This is particularly accentuated for elderly persons suffering from presbycusis. The proposed pre-processing is inspired from the steady-state suppression technique which consists in the detection of the steady-state portions of speech and the multiplication of their waveforms with an attenuation coefficient in order to decrease their masking effect. While the steady-state suppression technique is performed in the frequency domain, the pre-processing described in this paper is rather performed in the temporal domain. Its key novelty consists in the detection of the speech voiced segments using a priori knowledge about the distributions of the powers and the durations of voiced and unvoiced phonemes. The performances of this pre-processing are evaluated with an objective criterion and with subjective listening tests involving normal hearing persons and using a set of nonsense Vowel–Consonant–Vowel syllables and railway station vocal announcements.

Perception of the Quality of Life of Tobacco Growers Exposed to Pesticides: Emphasis on Health, Hearing, and Working Conditions.

Introduction Tobacco farming exposes workers to various health risks due to the high application of pesticides needed to control pests, weeds and fungal diseases that prevent the tobacco plant growth. Objective To analyze the perception of the quality of life of tobacco growers exposed to pesticides, with emphasis on general health, hearing, and working conditions. Method This is a descriptive, cross-sectional study using a quantitative approach with farmers from southern Brazil. Data were collected from November of 2012 to November of 2014. For data collection, we opted for the 36-item short form health survey (SF-36) questionnaire, and a questionnaire with closed questions about health, hearing and working conditions. We evaluated a total of 78 subjects; the study group, made up of 40 tobacco farmers exposed to pesticides, and a control group of 38 participants without occupational exposure to pesticides. Both groups are residents of the same municipality, and users of the federal public health system. Results The results showed that tobacco growers had lower quality of life scores compared with the control group. Significant differences were observed in the areas of pain and general health. There were correlations between physical elements and chronic diseases; hearing complaints and a lack of personal protective equipment use, occupation and hearing complaints, as well as general health and hearing complaints. Conclusion Tobacco farming is a risky activity for general and hearing health, and it can impact the quality of life of those working in this field.

Noise Pollution in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit and its Effect on Sedation

Noise exposure is an important factor in the management of intensive care patients. There are many different causes of noise in the ICU such as equipment, monitors, staff, family plus other additional sources. Patients in the ICU are exposed to these noise sources for 24 hours a day with no respite. The noise levels can vary significantly during the day as well as significantly between patient bed-spaces. There are detrimental effects from excessive noise exposure; some of this is related to the risk of damage to a person's hearing.

Effect of Duration of Exposure to Personal Listening Devices on Hearing Thresholds in Young Adults.

To analyze the effect of duration of use of personal listening devices on hearing impairment in young adults. Hospital-based cross-sectional study. Department of ENT, NEIGRIHMS, India. 50 consenting undergraduate medical students. This study was conducted over a period of 2months. After eliminating all previous and current otological pathologies, Pure Tone Audiometry was conducted on each subject for both air and bone conducted sound stimuli. The subjects were divided into different groups based on duration of exposure. The audiograms were then closely evaluated for the existence of an association between the duration of personal listening devices (PLD) use and hearing impairment. The data was then evaluated by Chi Square test and Mann-Whitney U test using GraphPad InStat 3 software for the existence of an association between the duration of PLD usage and hearing impairment. The hearing thresholds varied only in isolated frequencies irrespective of the categorisation of duration of exposure to PLDs. There was no significant association between duration of use of personal listening devices and hearing impairment in young adults.

Ohjelmatekstityksen toimivuus eri kohderyhmien näkökulmasta

Intralingual subtitles or subtitles for deaf and hard of hearing people are targeted at heterogenous audiences with differing possibilities of reception. The article presents results of two reception studies in which viewers’ opinions of intralingual Finnish subtitles were examined. In the first study, two groups, one consisting of deaf persons and the other of Finnish language learners, watched a subtitled movie and discussed the subtitles. The results were compared with the findings of a study carried out in 2014 in which the participants were late deafened and hard of hearing persons. The second study was a user experiment and tested subtitles produced with four different techniques: 1) speech recognition; 2) respeaking; 3) manual transcription of the speech; 4) traditional (the final subtitles of the programme). The data were tested and presented in a seminar for deafened and hard of hearing people, and the participants’ opinions were gathered with a questionnaire. Additionally, a group of Finnish learners watched the same data and discussed it. All the groups preferred verbatim subtitles, although for different reasons.

Real-time Parental Voice Recognition System For Persons Having Impaired Hearing

Persons having impaired hearing do not live a comfortable life because they can’t hear sounds when they are asleep or alone at home. In this study, a parental voice recognition system was proposed for those people. Persons having impaired hearing are informed by vibration about which one of their parents is speaking. By this means, the person having impaired hearing real timely perceives who is calling or who is speaking to him. The wearable device that we developed can real timely perceive parental voice very easily, and transmits it to person having impaired hearing, while he/she is asleep or at home. A wearable device has been developed for persons having impaired hearing to use easily at home environment. Our device is placed on user’s back, and just a ring-sized vibration motor is attached to the finger of person. Our device consists of Raspberry Pi, usb sound card, microphone, power supply and vibration motor. First of all, the sound is received by a microphone, and sampling is made. According to the Nyquist Theorem, 44100 samples are made per second. Normalization during preprocessing phase, Mel Frequency Cepstral Coefficients (MFCC) during feature extraction stage, k nearest neighbor (knn) during the classification phase were used. Statistical or Z-score normalization was used in the pre-processing phase. By means of normalization of the data, it is ensured that each parameter in the training input set contributes equally to the prediction of the model. MFCC is one of the feature extraction methods that are frequently used in voice recognition applications. MFCC represents the short-time power spectrum of the audio signal, and models the manner of perception of human ear. Knn is an educational learning algorithm, and its aim is to classify the existing learning data when a new sampling arrives. The sound data received via microphone were estimated through preprocessing, feature extraction and classification stages, and the person having impaired hearing was informed through real time vibrations about to whom this voice belongs. This study was tested on 2 deaf, 3 normal hearing persons. The ears of normal hearing persons were covered with a earphone that gives out loud noise. Persons having impaired hearing estimated their mothers’ voice by 76%, and fathers’ voice by 81% accuracy in real-time tests. The success rate decreases due to the noise of environment especially while watching tv. In the tests performed while these persons are asleep, a person having impaired hearing perceives his/her mother’s voice by 78%, and father’s voice by 83% accuracy. In this study it was aimed for persons having impaired hearing to perceive their parents’ voice and accordingly have a more prosperous standard of living.