This post first appeared on my blog "Healthy Hearing" on the AARP website, on January 14, 2015. Because the AARP blog is difficult to subscribe to, you can subscribe to this blog by pressing the "Follow" button below right. You will receive a brief email notice when I put up a new post and you can … Continue reading Hearing Loss? Denial Doesn’t Work. Trust Me.
Author: Katherine Bouton
AARP Focuses on Healthy Hearing.
AARP is making a big foray into the hearing loss field, which is great for those of us who have -- or will have -- trouble hearing. Even now, more than half of those with hearing loss are under the age of 60 -- that means 24 million of us are already not hearing as well … Continue reading AARP Focuses on Healthy Hearing.
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Helping People With Disabilities Help Themselves
It’s taken eight years, but on Tuesday Congress passed, by a large bipartisan margin, the ABLE Act, which will allow people with disabilities and their families to create tax-exempt savings accounts to pay for expenses associated with disability. This means that for the first time a disabled person will not have to be virtually impoverished to receive … Continue reading Helping People With Disabilities Help Themselves
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Dogs and Us
Dogs go deaf, just like we do. But this isn't about doggie deafness. It's basically a link to a lovely article by David Dudley titled "What Our Dogs Teach Us About Aging" from the AARP magazine. Here's the takeaway: "Eat the best food you … Continue reading Dogs and Us
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Dear Abby, Please Think Again!
Dear Abby, your response to “Trapped in a Situation” about her hearing-impaired husband “Norm” almost made me weep. "Wife of deaf husband seeks to cope in new place." I wonder what deaf husband thinks of all this. Yes, of course Norm should inform the retirement community director about his hearing loss. But why did you … Continue reading Dear Abby, Please Think Again!
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Can a Vitamin Supplement Prevent Noise-Related Hearing Loss?
Interesting study from researchers at Weill Cornell Medical College and the Gladstone Institute about a vitamin supplement that protects against noise-related hearing loss in mice. The supplement, nicotinamide riboside (NR), is a simple chemical compound that's a precurser to Vitamin B3. It works by protecting the synaptic connections between the hair cells and the nerves … Continue reading Can a Vitamin Supplement Prevent Noise-Related Hearing Loss?
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The Hunger Games: The Perils of Lipreading
Those of us who don't hear all that well know that watching the speaker's lips is essential. Too often what we think we heard is not what we heard at all. Only 40 percent of English sound are visible on the lips. This results in some hilarious errors -- more fun when the joke's … Continue reading The Hunger Games: The Perils of Lipreading
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What’s With the Purple?
Why purple? I like it, for starters. But it's also part of the color scheme of the logo of the Hearing Loss of Association of America. I'm a fan of HLAA, and a member, and a member of the board. I'm grateful to it for advocacy and support on the national and local levels. And … Continue reading What’s With the Purple?
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Good News! For a change.
Good news for people with hearing loss. Last week CMS, which runs Medicare and Medicaid, reversed itself on an earlier proposal to eliminate coverage for bone-anchored cochlear implants, like Cochlear’s Baha and Oticon’s Ponto. This is good news for two reasons. First, it preserves coverage for an important and expensive technology. People with certain kinds of hearing … Continue reading Good News! For a change.
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An Invisible War Wound
An Invisible War Wound: Out of sight, and mostly out of mind. When we think about the injuries our servicemen and -women endure, on this Veterans’ Day, we naturally focus on major life-changing injuries like Traumatic Brain Injury and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. We worry about suicide in veterans. We see veterans struggling to learn to walk again with prosthetic limbs or … Continue reading An Invisible War Wound
Katherine Bouton: Smart Hearing 