Coping

Back in Business, After a Long Break

I’ve been letting people know I’m re-booting my Hearing Mojo hearing-loss blog after having taken a long break from posting new entries. In the past year I’ve let this blog lie dormant as I’ve gone completely “mainstream” with my communications consulting business, Aquarius Advisers. We have been successful, with a number of happy high-technology clients, but it’s been an education in coping with hearing loss in the business world. During my blogging hiatus, I’ve stayed current with the new developments in the world of hearing loss and hearing aids, including time spent consulting with America Hears, Inc., the leading online manufacturer and marketer of premium digital hearing aids. However, I’ve sorely missed writing about this industry and all the issues involved with it, so I intend to start doing so again. I’m still managing a transition to a new blogging platform (the new look and feel are enabled by the WordPress open-source content management system, as opposed to the Moveable Type platform I used in the past). So it might take me a while to get the new platform exposed to the search engines. But I’m starting to write again as of now. A lot has happened in my absence, and I intend to catch people up with all I’ve seen and heard, starting with my visit earlier this month to the American Academy of Audiology Audiology Now 2009 conference.

It’s Official: Bilateral Cochlear Implants Improve Quality Of Life

What people like Michael Chorost have long-suspected appears to be true: hearing in stereo is good for your health. A study by the Indiana University School of Medicine found “cochlear implants in both ears significantly improve quality of life in patients with profound hearing loss and that the cost of the second implant is offset by its benefits.” Read more

Congressman Markey Demands Internet-Video Captions For Hard-Of-Hearing Web Surfers

Democratic US Rep. Ed Markey of Massachusetts is backing a bill that would require major producers of web videos to provide captioning, a piece of legislation that provides many other benefits for people with hearing, vision and other disabilities. Read more

Don’t Blend Your Hearing Aids, Recycle Them Through The Lions Club

A few people were mightily disturbed by the funny video of Blendtec founder Tom Dickson grinding up a bunch of hearing aids in his company’s high-tech blender. But at least one reader went beyond complaining and made the helpful suggestion to donate them to someone who needs them. Read more

Why Don’t Hearing-Aid Companies Caption Their YouTube Videos?

My blogger friend Dr. Tom Goyne has several interesting posts with links to videos that Phonak, Widex, Oticon and other major hearing-aid companies are putting on the web. Great, but….Why aren’t any of the hearing-aid manufacturers’ videos captioned?!??! Read more

What Do I Have In Common With New York State Governor David Paterson?

In the past few months my day job has picked up to the point where I haven’t had a lot of time do write about hearing loss. In fact, I haven’t had much time even to think about my hearing loss. Read more

Can “Musicophilia” by Oliver Sacks Explain Why I’m Hearing Better?

I just picked up Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain by Oliver Sacks, and it is a revelation for anyone with hearing loss and distortion of sounds that comes with it. Sacks is a physician and neurological specialist who has written extensively on previously unexplained phenomena with the brain. Read more

More Good News From WGBH NCAM: Easy Captions For Adobe Flash Videos

While I’m going on about WGBH NCAM’s web video captioning success with its industry-wide coalition, I should also mention their recent introduction of a software utility that makes it easy to create captioned Adobe Flash videos. Read more

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