Event details include:

• Complimentary Hearing Screening
• FREE Listening Demonstration of the Intiga Hearing Device
• FREE 2 years of repair, loss and damage warranty for purchases made during this event
• Special 2 Week Trial Offer…Experience Intiga at home, at work and at play…RISK FREE!

Phonak nano is more than just a tiny hearing aid.  It is an outstanding combination of maximum hearing performance and minimum size.
Using computer-aided design and the latest generation of advanced materials, Phonak nano is custom crafted to fit entirely in your ear canal.  Enjoy wearing comfort while consistently experiencing outstanding sound quality.

The Phonak nano is for mild to moderate hearing loss, and is available in two price and performance levels to suit your personal preferences or budget.

Its powerful 2.4 GHz technology provides cable-free fittings

and truly wireless connections to everyday audio devices such as TVs and phones. The combination of ReSound Alera’s broad transmission range and the freedom it provides from body-worn streamers makes ReSound Alera both convenient and easy-to-use.

Neuroscientists at the University of California, Berkeley, are offering hope to the 10 percent of the population who suffer from tinnitus – a constant, often high-pitched ringing or buzzing in the ears that can be annoying and even maddening, and has no cure.

Their new findings, published online last week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggest several new approaches to treatment, including retraining the brain, and new avenues for developing drugs to suppress the ringing.

”This work is the most clearheaded documentation to this point of what’s actually happening in the brain’s cortex in ways that account for the ongoing genesis of sound,” said Michael Merzenich, professor emeritus of otolaryngology at UC San Francisco and inventor of the cochlear implant, who was not involved with the research. “As soon as I read the paper, I said, ‘Of course!’ It was immediately obvious that this is almost certainly the true way to think about it.”

Merzenich is also chief scientific officer at Posit Science, which develops software to retrain the brain, primarily to improve learning and memory but more recently to address problems like schizophrenia, Alzheimer’s Disease and tinnitus.

“Two million Americans are debilitated by tinnitus; they can’t work, they can’t sleep. Its life destroying and a substantial cause of suicide,” he said. “These experiments have led us to rethink how we attack the tinnitus by our training strategies.”

Loud noises kill hair cells

According to coauthor Shaowen Bao, adjunct assistant professor in the Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute at UC Berkeley, tinnitus – pronounced TIN-it-tus or tin-NIGHT-us – is most commonly caused by hearing loss. Sustained loud noises, as from machinery or music, as well as some drugs can damage the hair cells in the inner ear that detect sounds. Because each hair cell is tuned to a different frequency, damaged or lost cells leave a gap in hearing, typically a specific frequency and anything higher in pitch.

Experiments in the past few years have shown that the ringing doesn’t originate in the inner ear, though, but rather in regions of the brain – including the auditory cortex – that receives input from the ear.

Bao’s experiments in rats with induced hearing loss explain why the neurons in the auditory cortex generate these phantom perceptions. They showed that neurons that have lost sensory input from the ear become more excitable and fire spontaneously, primarily because these nerves have “homeostatic” mechanisms to keep their overall firing rate constant no matter what.

“With the loss of hearing, you have phantom sounds,” said Bao, who himself has tinnitus. In this respect, tinnitus resembles phantom limb pain experienced by many amputees,

One treatment strategy, then, is to retrain patients so that these brain cells get new input, which should reduce spontaneous firing. This can be done by enhancing the response to frequencies near the lost frequencies. Experiments over the past 30 years, including important research by Merzenich, have shown that the brain is plastic enough to reorganize in this way when it loses sensory input. When a finger is amputated, for example, the region of the brain receiving input from that finger may start handling input from neighboring fingers.

Bao noted that retraining the ear has been tried before, but with limited success. Most such attempts have taken patients with some residual hearing and trained their ears to be more sensitive to the affected frequencies. This wouldn’t work for patients with profound hearing loss, however.

Most retraining is also based on the assumption that reorganization of the brain – that is, changing how frequencies “map” to regions of the auditory cortex – is a cause of the tinnitus. This is the opposite of Bao’s conclusion.

“We argue that reorganizing the cortical map should be the goal, so that the nerves get some input and stop their tinnitus activity,” he said. “You don’t want to leave these cells without sensory input.”

“We changed our (brain training) strategy from one where we completely avoided the tinnitus domain to one where we directly engage it and try to redifferentiate or reactivate it, and we seem to be seeing improvement,” Merzenich said.

Drugs can boost inhibitors

Another treatment strategy, Bao said, is to find or develop drugs that inhibit the spontaneous firing of the idle neurons in the auditory cortex. Hearing loss causes changes at junctions between nerve cells, the so-called synapses, that both excite and inhibit firing. His experiments showed that tinnitus is correlated with lower levels of the inhibitory neurotransmitter GABA (gamma-aminobutyric acid), but not with changes in the excitatory neurotransmitters.

He demonstrated that two drugs that increase the level of GABA eliminated tinnitus in rats. Unfortunately, these drugs have serious side effects and cannot be used in humans. He has applied for several grants to start screening drugs for their ability to enhance GABA receptor function, increase the synthesis of GABA, slow the re-uptake of GABA around nerve cells, or slow its enzymatic degradation.

“Our findings will guide the kind of research to find drugs that enhance inhibition on auditory cortical neurons,” Bao said. “There are a lot of things we can do to change GABA functions, some of which could potentially alleviate tinnitus with fewer side effects.”

Copyright Healthy Hearing 2011

100% Invisible Hearing Aid

About Lyric Hearing

Lyric® is the first and only extended wear hearing device that is 100% invisible. Lyric is comfortably placed in the ear canal by a Lyric trained hearing professional and can be worn 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for months at a time.* No surgery or anesthesia is required. Unlike many other hearing aids, Lyric is positioned completely inside the ear canal, so it uses your ear’s natural anatomy to provide exceptional sound quality and alleviate hearing problems. Lyric lets you hear better and live life to the fullest!

How Lyric Works – No Battery Changes

Lyric® is comfortably placed in the ear canal by a Lyric trained hearing professional during a routine office visit. No surgery or anesthesia is required.

Once placed, Lyric is 100% invisible, allowing you to enjoy all the benefits of better hearing without anyone knowing you’re wearing a hearing aid. You can use Lyric for months at a time*, there are no batteries to replace and no repairs to make. Just visit your hearing professional’s office as needed* to receive new devices with the latest Lyric technology.

Lyric is sold on a subscription basis, meaning you will purchase a year’s worth of Lyric devices at a time. You will be guaranteed to have the most advanced Lyric hearing technology currently available, since you will be receiving new devices at each follow-up office visit.

Uniquely designed and placed, Lyric works with your ear’s anatomy to deliver exceptional sound quality. Lyric uses your outer ear to naturally direct sound into your ear canal without the need for multiple settings or complicated programs.

Lyric will be programmed for your specific hearing needs. You will be able to adjust the settings and volume on your device as needed, as well as turn the device on and off.

Lyric Technology:

Developed by ENT physicians and audiologists, Lyric was built around three key concepts that hearing professionals have known for years:

◦   Sound quality improves with proximity to the eardrum

◦   Many people with hearing loss are dissatisfied with their hearing aid options

◦   Consumers desire a hassle-free, invisible solution

Lyric Technology features:

◦   Biocompatible soft foam seals engineered to contour to the ear canal; safe to wear 24/7, months at a time*

◦   Proprietary mechanical and coating technology developed to protect the device from moisture and earwax

◦   A proprietary battery designed to last up to 120 days eliminating the need to change and buy hearing aid batteries

A programmable sound processing system designed to work millimeters from the eardrum, allowing for both microphone and receiver placement in the ear canal.

Many of today’s advanced digital hearing aids are Bluetooth (^TM) or wireless compatible, meaning they are able to connect wirelessly to various Bluetooth enabled devices and other audio devices such as cell phones, PDAs and computers. Each hearing aid manufacturer offers different wireless solutions for their hearing aids, but most often solutions consist of the hearing aid wearer wearing a streaming device to “stream” audio output from an audio device (such as your cell phone) directly to your hearing aids.

Most hearing aids with wireless capabilities are able to connect to landline phones, cell phones, TVs and MP3 players with a simple push a button on a streaming device. These streaming devices essentially turn your hearing aids into a hands free headset, allowing you to hear output from other audio devices through both of your hearing aids at the same time.

Some of the benefits of purchasing hearing aids with wireless capabilities include:

• Ability to hear audio devices with both ears for optimal listening on landline phone, cellphone and TV
• Ability to switch between TV, landline phone and cell phone with a simple push of a button
• Streaming device most often can be used as a remote control for your hearing aids as well
• Stay connected to the devices that matter most in your busy life

Dr. Maria Wynens

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“Seniors with hearing loss are significantly more likely to develop dementia over time than those who retain their hearing, a study by Johns Hopkins and National Institute on Aging researchers suggests. The findings, the researchers say, could lead to new ways to combat dementia, a condition that affects millions of people worldwide and carries heavy societal burdens.

Although the reason for the link between the two conditions is unknown, the investigators suggest that a common pathology may underlie both or that the strain of decoding sounds over the years may overwhelm the brains of people with hearing loss, leaving them more vulnerable to dementia. They also speculate that hearing loss could lead to dementia by making individuals more socially isolated, a known risk factor for dementia and other cognitive disorders.

Whatever the cause, the scientists report, their finding may offer a starting point for interventions — even as simple as hearing aids — that could delay or prevent dementia by improving patients’ hearing.

“Researchers have looked at what affects hearing loss, but few have looked at how hearing loss affects cognitive brain function,” says study leader Frank Lin, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor in the Division of Otology at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. “There hasn’t been much crosstalk between otologists and geriatricians, so it’s been unclear whether hearing loss and dementia are related.”

Even after the researchers took into account other factors that are associated with risk of dementia, including diabetes, high blood pressure, age, sex and race, Lin explains, hearing loss and dementia were still strongly connected.

“A lot of people ignore hearing loss because it’s such a slow and insidious process as we age,” Lin says. “Even if people feel as if they are not affected, we’re showing that it may well be a more serious problem .” “

“In developing Chili, we recognized early on that helping power users to hear speech better was not enough,” states Oticon President Peer Lauritsen. “Our goal for Chili was an ambitious one – to empower people with moderately-severe to profound hearing loss to live active, vital lives. The results of a dedicated, in-depth study of super power users, their families and friends and information from super power users who are routinely interviewed and tested by Oticon audiologists and researchers enabled us to identify their most important needs and desires. We looked beyond the need for amplification to better understand the real life challenges and the impact of severe hearing loss on personal connections and social interactions.”

A New Way to Solve a Well Known Challenge

The ability to understand speech is essential for a super power user. Helping users to not just distinguish but to make sense of the sounds – clear, undistorted speech – is the challenge addressed with Chili’s new Speech Guard. The unique amplification technique helps to maximize audibility and speech recognition without the jumble and distortion power users can encounter with even the most advanced hearing aids available today.

Speech Guard provides a clear signal, reducing the distortion to make it easier to follow conversations, even in more complex environments where noise or more voices are competing for attention. The addition of Oticon’s proprietary Dynamic Speech Enhancement rationale for super power users (DSEsp) provides the desired insertion gain and MPO and maintains optimum loudness levels for speech input across the relevant frequency range, making speech signals far more useful for users.

People with severe to profound hearing loss also have greater difficulty selecting and following a particular speaker. Chili’s Binaural Noise Management system automatically turns up speech on one side when the signal to noise ratio is significantly better, while attenuating noise on the opposite side to improve listening effort.

Connecting to Modern Communication Devices

Chili’s embedded wireless connectivity capabilities offer a unique and intuitive hearing solution that allows users to switch seamlessly between entertainment and communication devices using the Streamer remote control device. With the Streamer, Chili becomes a hands-free headset for mobile phones and MP3 players. With the addition of the ConnectLine system, users can channel sound directly from the TV, landline telephone or music player with just the touch of a button. Connect(+) adds Power Bass and Music Widening features for a richer, more open listening experience.

Style, Quality and Reliability to Count On

Chili combines attractive and discreet design with high performance and reliability. The new hearing instrument’s stylish, cosmetic design incorporates fast control features for instant muting, volume adjustment and program selection.

Engineered to the highest endurance specifications, Chili is designed inside and out with double protection against damage from moisture, sweat, dirt and shocks. The unique shock-absorbing construction of Chili’s electronic components prevents breakage should the hearing instruments be dropped or fall off the ear. The high-tech water repellent coating keeps out moisture and dirt, and the battery door is secured against water and sweat. Inside, Chili’s electronic parts are permanently sealed with a coating that repels water, moisture and dirt.