Starkey Founder William Austin and Virgin Founder Sir Richard Branson Fit One Of 500 Hearing-Aid Recipients On Starkey Hearing Foundation South Africa Mission That Branson Calls "One Of The Most Rewarding Weekends Of My Life"

Media mogul, airline magnate, and high-altitude explorer Sir Richard Branson got hands-on with hearing aids on a recent Starkey Hearing Foundation mission to South Africa that the jet-setting celebrity philanthropist called “one of the most rewarding weekends of my life.”

“Seeing kids who had never been able to hear or speak doing so for the first time. Old men completely deaf dancing with joy at suddenly being able to hear again. Incredible,” Branson said in a post on his Virgin Companies blog entitled “Giving the Gift of Hearing.”

William Austin, founder of Starkey Laboratories and the Starkey Hearing Foundation, led the mission, which set up 500 hard-of-hearing South African citizens with hearing aids.

Those of us who write about hearing loss usually cite government data putting the number in the range of 30 to 35 million Americans. The Johns Hopkins study says 30 million American adults–about 12 percent–have hearing loss in two ears, and that 48 million, or 20 percent, have hearing loss in at least one ear.

The survey also uses the World Health Organization’s definition of hearing loss: not being able to hear sounds of 25 decibels or less in speech frequencies. So the results are relevant to the hearing health care profession.

The Johns Hopkins hearing-loss survey is important because it’s hard to find current data from an impeccable source. Johns Hopkins is one of the world’s top public-health research institutions, so its count is probably the most accurate new assessment of the prevalence of hearing loss in the U.S. The survey used data from the National Health and Nutritional Examination Surveys (NHANES) conducted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, and the painstaking methodology the researchers used provide credibility to their claim that the results are representative of a cross-section of Americans.

The study’s authors say the findings “suggest that many more people than previously thought are affected by this condition,” which isn’t a surprise, as they used more recent data than many of the other studies that are more often quoted. It just reinforces the intuitive conclusion that as the Baby Boom generation ages, the incidence of hearing loss across the population is going to increase at a predictable rate.

But the “one in five” headline is still a shocker. Especially when you realize that only a small minority of that 20 percent is getting any help for their hearing loss. Let’s see if the headlines make a difference.

There are a number of answers, but according to the survey, the high cost of hearing aids and inadequate insurance coverage for hearing-loss treatment (or lack of health insurance entirely) are high on the list of reasons people don’t seek out help for their hearing problems.

Check out some of the results of the survey of AARP members:

• While 88 percent said they had their vision tested in the past five years, less than half that number, 43 percent, had their hearing checked.
• But in the same period, nearly half (46 percent) said their hearing has gotten worse, with 61 percent saying they have difficulty following conversations in noisy situations.
• And even though 85 percent said maintaining hearing health is of great importance to them personally, 57 percent of respondents with hearing difficulties said they are not seeking treatment.
• Why do they fail to seek treatment? Here’s the kicker: “Nearly two-thirds of poll respondents (63 percent) cite health insurance coverage limitations, concerns about cost, and lack of health insurance as reasons for not getting treatment for hearing difficulties.”

AARP is the world’s biggest organization for people over the age of 50, and when it zeroes in on an issue it can move mountains. What would happen if AARP got on the hearing-loss bandwagon in a big way? Would we see more insurance companies providing coverage for hearing aids? Would we see more pressure on hearing-aid manufacturers to provide more affordable solutions?

Unfortunately, there may be an even bigger problem than high costs and lack of insurance coverage for the failure of people to seek out help. The survey also reveals there’s still a tremendous fear of the stigma that, rightly or wrongly, so many people associate with hearing loss. When you read the full report on the results (click here to download the PDF), you see too many troubling mentions of survey respondents wanting to “cover up” evidence of their hearing loss:

Fifty-seven percent of those with untreated hearing problems say their problems don’t warrant treatment and are easy enough to “cover up.” The foremost reason for not seeking treatment is a perception that their hearing issue isn’t severe enough – that they are getting by without treatment. They seem to have found ways that they believe cover up their hearing issues, and do not see a connection to an improved quality of life that treatment may provide.

Maybe the best result of the AARP focus on the hearing-loss issue will be a reduction in the stigma associated with hearing aids and a greater acceptance by the over-50 Baby Boomer set of the notion that a little help with their hearing could go a long way. But I’m not holding my breath!

Everyone knows the Super Bowl is more than a football game. In fact, in the Madison Avenue circles where I used to move, it’s more a Super Bowl of advertising than an athletic contest. It’s where the most creative minds in media and entertainment show off their best and brightest ideas every year. That’s why when I lost most of my hearing, it enraged me that so few of the ads had captions.

A lot of other people were mad, too, and all the lobbying seemingly has finally paid off. I say “seemingly” because, when it comes to broadcaster and advertiser commitments to provide captions, seeing is believing. It’s not enough to say you’ll provide the captions.You have to actually follow through on your commitment:

• First, you really DO have to provide the captions (that’s right, even after the FCC mandated captions on all broadcast TV several years ago, there are still complaints about many shows that simply don’t have them).
• You also have to provide captions that that are comprehensible (sometimes there are more dropped lines than not in a live broadcast, and I’ve tried to decipher thousands of lines of gobbledygook trying to pass themselves off as dialogue in the captions I’ve followed over the past few years).
• And you can’t cut corners and costs by relying on your speech-recognition software without putting enough humans with brains at the captioning console. (I really did watch that show a few years ago about a “cereal killer” who murdered lots of people but didn’t once eat a bowl of corn flakes).

Therefore, the National Association of the Deaf, in its announcement of the agreement, encouraged everyone to keep score, not of the game, but of how well the NFL and FOX Broadcasting live up to their promise:

The deaf and hard of hearing community has engaged in an annual ritual of counting the number of captioned commercials and network promotions during the Super Bowl. Consumers are invited to join in this celebration by counting along as we reach our 100% captioning goal. The NAD is interested in learning about any technical issues that affect the pass through of captions to consumer’s television sets.

So, three cheers to the NAD and everyone else who brought enough pressure on the powers that be to bring captions to the world’s biggest stage. Let’s all keep score, and let’s let ‘em have it if the broadcaster or the advertisers fumble the ball on providing good Super Bowl captions.

ClearCaptions Offers Real-Time Phone Captioning

Purple Communications, which has been providing voice and video relay services and other assistance to deaf and hard-of-hearing consumers for over a decade, is broadening its portfolio with its new ClearCaptions IP closed captioned telephone service. Captioning of real-time telephone conversations over the Internet is currently available from two other vendors, Sprint Relay and Hamilton Relay, both of whom rely on the WebCaptel service developed by UltraTec. Purple Communications (formerly GoAmerica), which will offer the service under its FCC charter as an approved provider of Telecommunications Relay Services (TRS), is creating some competition and increasing awareness of telephone captioning with its entirely new ClearCaptions service.

ClearCaptions is currently in its beta-test or trial phase but is accepting new users who can register at the ClearCaptions web site. IP captioned telephone service lets you view real-time captions of your phone conversations on your Internet-connected computer (or your Internet-connected handheld phone or tablet). All you have to do is notify your relay service provider that you are making a call, and the service provider monitors both ends of the conversation and, aided by voice-recognition software, provides you with a real-time transcript of the call. That way, if you’re like me and tend to miss anywhere from 20 to 80 percent of a phone conversation depending on the quality of the connection and any background noise that might be present, you get to fill in the blanks with the transcript.

Best of all, these web-enabled services are free, with subsidies provided by the government as part of the effort supported by the original Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) to provide everyone with reasonable access to public facilities, including telecommunications, regardless of their disabilities. Hamilton Relay and Sprint Relay both also offer additional captioning services that require additional investment, including captioned telephones that display the captions directly on the phone’s LCD display so that you don’t need a computer.

The first neat thing you find with the ClearCaptions service is that you can register and log on through your Facebook account, which means you don’t have to remember a new user name or password. There is also a nice iPhone and iPad app that lets  you get the captions right on your phone. I know Hamilton CapTel and Sprint CapTel both enable their captions on the iPhone, Blackberries and other smart phones. But I love the fact ClearCaptions has an iPad app because that’s the handheld device I use for email and other apps. (The iPhone isn’t hearing-aid compatible, and other smart phones including the Blackberry that meet basic hearing-aid compatibility requirements still don’t have the audio quality I need, so I use the simplest old LG clamshell Verizon offers because it offers the best voice quality, and I use the iPad for all my other hand-held computing and communications needs).

Beyond that I have yet to do a test of the Purple Communications service versus the WebCapTel service to see which provides better captions. As anyone accustomed to watching sports, the nightly news or any other live television programming can attest, quality of real-time captioning can vary tremendously, from near-perfect transcriptions to near unintelligible gobbledygook. So when I’m able to try out both side by side, I will write up a report.

The hearing aid industry manufacturers often define their work as a social mission to improve people’s lives by improving their ability to socialize and communicate. But it’s often hard to reconcile the claim that they are on a social mission when so many of their products are priced so high that only the very wealthiest of world’s consumers can afford them. Their social credibility would be higher if more manufacturers put their money where their mouth is by making a real effort to give something back, like ReSound and another notable example, Starkey Laboratories. Starkey Labs founder William Austen, whose Starkey Hearing Foundation has led the way for many years by raising millions of dollars to fund the donation of of hearing aids to tens of thousand of people around the world, says his foundation gives away 100,000 hearing aids a year, compared to the 1 million hearing aids sold annually by Starkey Labs: “It’s 10 percent, so it’s like tithing,” he told the Clark, County, WA, Columbian in an interview last Fall.

And the opportunity to give back doesn’t end with the manufacturers. There are millions of hearing aids sitting unused in bureau drawers around the world. Many of them could be reconditioned and provide a needy person with the gift of hearing. If you have a pair gathering dust in your drawer, you can donate them to Starkey’s Hear Now program. Another hearing aid manufacturer, America Hears, in the past has offered discounts to consumers who trade in their hearing aids and donates the used aids to a Rotary International Foundation program, Help the Children Hear.

Ear Plugs: The Front Line In Workplace Hearing Protection

Manufacturers of personal hearing protection solutions are missing an opportunity by not raising their voices to be heard in the debate over government regulations limiting noise in the workplace. When two U.S. Senators this week persuaded the U.S. Labor Department to back off from proposed rule changes that would have required large and small companies to more aggressively manage noise levels in the workplace, they put their finger on a critical question: Should the government force companies to limit the overall noise they create, or should government instead simply require companies to provide their employees with effective personal hearing protection?

When the government tells manufacturers to lower overall workplace noise volume, it forces businesses to install expensive sound-dampening systems that can amount to huge capital investments. But when the government simply tells businesses to protect the hearing of their workers in the most effective way possible, the first move is to outfit workers with highly effective (and highly cost-effective) ear plugs, ear muffs, or more sophisticated hearing protection devices that allow them to communicate even as their hearing is protected from over-loud noise.

Unfortunately, government bureaucrats often are more interested in fast but expensive one-size-fits-all solutions than they are in getting up to speed on things like the variety of new personal hearing protection technologies that can do the job better and less expensively. Therefore, if makers of personal hearing protection devices want to increase their market and sales, they should be advocating for sensible hearing-protection rules that require companies to issue the right kind of hearing protection equipment to their employees, over rules that require more expensive investments in overall workplace noise reduction.

Sen. Joseph Lieberman, a Connecticut Democrat, and Sen. Olympia Snow, a Republican from Maine, this week sent a letter to the Secretary of Labor complaining that the Labor Department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA) recent revised interpretation of existing workplace noise regulations would put an unfair burden on small businesses. After receiving the letter, OSHA quickly reversed course and decided to study the matter more, asking for more comments and promising to look into more alternatives before revising the rules. It’s an excellent opportunity now for manufacturers of personal hearing protection devices to weigh into the debate.

The new interpretation OSHA had proposed shifted the emphasis of government regulations from requiring that companies issue personal hearing protection to individual employees toward requiring that companies invest in more expensive workplace noise-reduction systems. But Senators Lieberman and Snow argued that the new interpretation was a dramatic change in direction that would kill job growth and threaten to put many small manufacturers out of business:

OSHA would be overturning established and, to our understanding, effective policy that presently allows businesses to provide their employees with “personal protective equipment” — such as ear plugs and ear muffs that are fitted to the individual employees — if those items are more cost-effective than far broader administrative or engineering controls….These controls could include limiting the amount of time an employee can work in an area with high noise, or installing expensive and disruptive noise-dampening equipment at the employer’s facility….”

The debate over regulating workplace noise and worker hearing protection is a good one to have. I personally believe there is a role for the government to take steps to protect public and private employees from on-the-job injury and disability. And I believe noise-induced hearing loss should qualify as a disability, as it does for military veterans. At the same time, I believe there’s been far too little awareness of the problem of noise-induced hearing loss and the many easy, cost-effective ways it can be prevented. If people knew how preventable hearing loss can be, they would be faster to make the small investments in money and time to ensure the proper protection.

Until recently, the main form of personal hearing protection was ear plugs and ear muffs — but because in many noisy workplaces they made it impossible to communicate, they often weren’t practical. But now there are plenty of intelligent ear pieces that can dampen dangerously loud noise and filter out background noises while improving understanding of speech, even in noisiest environments. There are also numerous wireless communication systems that protect hearing even as they dramatically improve collaboration among teams in noisy workplaces. And the costs of these intelligent devices are coming down all the time.

If government regulators were more aware of this current revolution in hearing protection technology, maybe they would be able to draw up regulations more carefully in ways that truly protect workers’ hearing while eliminating any unnecessary costs of doing business. And that would be good news for the innovators in the hearing protection business who would increase their sales while performing a real service to society.

Etymotic's Electronic Blast Earplugs Win CES Best-Innovation Award

Serious hearing loss is an all-too-common problem besetting U.S. military veterans and is the number-one cause of disability among those soldiers returning from Afghanistan. The problem is all the more tragic because for the most part hearing loss is preventable: a simple, inexpensive set of good earplugs can protect your hearing from the damage caused by even explosions and gunshot blasts. Unfortunately, many of the earplugs available to soldiers today frequently suffer the same fate as hearing aids worn by the rest of us: too often they sit in the drawer, unused. That’s not because soldiers are vain or lazy. The sad truth is that traditional ear plugs are unsafe in combat zones. When you can’t hear your colleagues in a firefight, chain-of-command breaks down pretty quickly, and people can get killed.

What’s needed is intelligent, active hearing protection. A new class of hearing-aid-like devices can dampen too-loud noise and filter out unwanted noise while amplifying and clarifying speech. A number of hearing-technology companies have tackled the challenge of hearing protection for soldiers, and one of them, Etymotic Research, just won a “Best of Innovations” award at the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. Etymotic’s Electronic Blast PLG Earplugs won a coveted Best of Innovations in Health and Wellness award at a ceremony yesterday. The Etymotic blast earplugs allow normal detection and localization of even the softest sounds, provide optional gain for (only) soft sound, and protect ears from firearms and explosive blast. And they’re not just for soldiers, as hunters and workers in noisy industrial environments can find them equally useful.

Passage was expected after the U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved its version of the same bill, H.R. 3101, last week, and now all that is required is reconciliation of the two bills, a final vote in the House and President Obama’s signature. In what House sponsor Rep. Edward Markey has called “online ramps to the Internet” for people with disabilities, the new law will, among many other things:

• Require captioned television programs to be captioned when delivered over the Internet.
• Authorize the FCC to require 7 hours per week of TV video description for vision-impaired people on the top 4 network channels and top 5 cable channels nationwide.
• Allocate up to $10 million per year for communications equipment used by individuals who are deaf-blind.
• Require devices of any size to be capable of displaying closed captioning, delivering available video description, and making emergency information accessible.
• Require accessible user controls for televisions and set-top boxes, and easy access to closed captioning and video description.

The new law is a huge step forward for people with disabilities in an age when equal access to Internet services is an absolute must for anyone to successfully earn a living and enjoy the quality of life that other accommodations have enabled ever since passage of the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) 20 years ago.

Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley Makes Movie Theaters Agree To Provide More Closed Captions

On the same day that the U.S. Justice Department was asking for comments on a proposed rule requiring movie theaters to provide closed captions for hard-of-hearing customers along with audio descriptions for blind theatergoers, Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley was finalizing an agreement with three of the biggest movie theater chains to dramatically increase accessibility options at movie theaters throughout the state.

It’s no coincidence that the major theater chains are finally agreeing to provide more accessibility services at the same time the government is making noises about strengthening its mandates. In Massachusetts, the agreement was a settlement of a formal civil rights complaint brought by deaf and blind residents alleging discrimination because of the absence of accessible technology.

The Justice Department put theater owners on notice it was considering changing its regulations under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) to mandate closed captioning and audio descriptions at all theater locations. In a notice published in the Federal Register, the Justice Department noted the slow progress the industry had made in providing accessibility options in spite of advances in technology making captioning and audio descriptions easier than in the past:

The Department is concerned about what appears to be a significant disconnect between the production of movies that have captioning and video description capabilities and the actual exhibition or availability of such movies to individuals with sensory disabilities. The Department also is concerned that even when captioned and video described movies are exhibited, their showings appear to be relegated to the middle of the week or midday showings.

The publication of the notice about the proposed rule change is the start of a three-to-six month process that will include comments by all parties, hearings, and ultimately a decision to revise the regulations or maintain the status quo.

The consent agreement in Massachusetts may indicate which way the political winds are blowing and presage similar agreement to increase accessibility nationally. Three of the nation’s biggest theater owners, National Amusements, Inc. (which runs Showcase Cinemas), American Multi-Cinema (AMC Theaters) and the Regal Entertainment Group (Regal Theaters) agreed to ensure that every location in Massachusetts is equipped with accessible technology that will provide meaningful access to the hearing and visually impaired, including captioning technology and description technology.

Captioning technology takes a movie’s sound (dialogue, music, sound-effects) and converts it to a captioned format that a hearing impaired audience member can read.  Description technology provides a narration of what is displayed visually on the movie screen (action, scene changes, facial expressions) during natural pauses in the movie’s soundtrack through headphones worn by the visually impaired.

Additionally, the theaters agreed that multiplexes with 10 or more screens will have at least two accessible auditoriums, one of which will be in the locations’ largest auditorium — a huge benefit to theatergoers frustrated that the captioned movies are never the ones they want to see. By requiring captioning and audio descriptions in the largest auditorium, hearing and visually impaired patrons won’t have to wait for blockbuster films to make their way to the smaller auditoriums that have historically been equipped with accessibility equipment.

All in all, a banner week for captioning advocates, capping the celebrations of the 20th Anniversary of the signing of the ADA legislation and passage in the U.S. House of Representatives, by a huge margin, of H.R. 3101, the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act, that will require more accessibility over the Internet including closed captioning of TV shows broadcast on the web.