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 ReSound, Spring 2008 (PDF, 1.7MB) ReSound, Winter 2008 (PDF, 2.6MB) ReSound, Spring 2009 (PDF, 17MB) ReSound - Some History Introducing the new logo for ReSound A Day Out in Wales How the first internal cochlear implant developed News from the Implant Programme Letter from John McMahon Talk by Trevor Smith Diary of My ABI Letter from Irene Hill TV and Phones in Hospitals Implant User Makes the Headlines Introducing the new logo for ReSound Discussing the banner for our new web site with Zoe Tomlin who was helping Geoff Brown with the design of the home page I mentioned that I would also like a new heading and logo for the front of ReSound. Zoe enthusiastically offered to work on this and I am very happy with the result. Zoe is justly proud of her design and I am sure you will all be as interested as I was in how it was developed. Norah Clewes How the ReSound Logo was Born! by Zoe Tomlin I asked if I could be given the responsibility of creating the ReSound Logo because I really enjoy graphic designing and art. I am aware that it is very difficult to get good images of the inside of a person’s cochlea and I wanted the ReSound Logo to be really special. I did some research on the Internet and I came across photos of cut Nautilus shells which look very similar to cochleas. |
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One of the reasons I felt that the Nautilus Shell would make a very fitting logo for the ReSound
Newsletter is that it is considered to be a symbol of beauty and proportional perfection. Not only
that, the spiral of the chambered nautilus as well as other logarithmic spirals can be found throughout
the human body and nature. For example the Sunflower, the Snow Flake, a bee’s hive, the pine
cone, even the cochlear itself all follow a mathematical curve called a logarithmic spiral, which
also approximates the "Fibonacci Number" series, or the so-called "golden ratio".
The Fibonacci Sequence is a progression in which each term Is equal to the sum of the two preceding terms ie 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13. The golden ratio or Phi imposes the additional requirement of the two segments that define the mean, it also adds to the length of the entire line segment which is why the Nautilus Shell grows in the pattern that it does. So maybe for a cochlear implantee the golden ratio has gone wonky causing hearing loss, and the Cochlear implant restores the balance allowing them to hear again? Whatever the reason, I did think it was rather fitting that the Natutilus Shell became the basis for the ReSound Logo. A Large Cut Nautilus Shell  Photo - Zoë Tomlin This slice of the nautilus shell shows its beautiful nacreous interior and the walls or septa that separate the chambers. Each Nautilus shell when cut cleanly in half to reveal the beautiful pearlised interior. A Chambered Nautilus  From the Georgia Shell Club Website. This is a slice through the middle of the nautilus shell. The tube you see running through the chambers is called the siphuncle. The animal uses this tube to pump a gas into or out of the chambers to regulate its buoyancy as it swims. The Georgia Shell Club is a non-profit organization dedicated to the appreciation of all aspects of the science and beauty of seashells. Their link is http://www.arches.uga.edu/~amylyne/GSC/gashell.htm and they have many fabulous photos of shells. I used a graphic design program to trace out the outline of the Chambered Nautilus and the first Logo looked like this  I still thought I could do better; I also had to bear in mind that this Logo needed to be suitable for both the Newsletter and the Cicada Group webpage too! Never to be defeated by a challenge I kept trying different styles and I came up with this idea.  which is the base for our new logo, a final tweak here and there we finally had a Newsletter head we could be proud of and this is what we have today.   I am very proud of it and I hope you will be too. Feedback and comments on your thoughts would be very welcome – please send them to the usual address. Top Extracts from previous issues of ReSound A Day out in Wales by Sandra Fletcher (2006) We were looking forward to another summer BBQ, thanks to Dennis and Heather, and decided to make a weekend of it and booked our caravan in at Bodfari, a couple of miles from the venue. We arrived on Friday and after a short stroll, enjoyed a pub meal and retired to bed hoping for another hot sunny day, like the time 2 years ago. Well what a different day we awoke to! Grey, leaden skies and RAIN! The 'start time' was noon but as the clock crept around, the rain fell heavier. We delayed as long as possible, hoping for a break, but had to move ourselves at noon. We had the necessary waterproofs, umbrellas, boots, so off we set. We arrived 45 minutes later like two drowned rats, but what a good job we went. Dennis and Heather did us all proud – a marquee no less! and it was full. People had made the effort to come which was a little surprising due to the terrible weather. Two years previously on a glorious day, there were only half the people. Just goes to show more like a good old cool, rainy day! Gordon was already the Head Chef, in his element at the Grill! Sausages, burgers were rolling off faster than we could eat 'em. Everyone was talking, laughing, eating, lots to catch up on. Bill and Suzanne arrived from Derbyshire, quite a drive that, and her Savoury Rice went down a treat. So did the gateau! Some of the more hardy set out to tackle the Forest Trail and answer as many of the clues as possible. The forest was planted by Dennis and Heather when they first moved in some 20 years ago and has grown well. You had to dodge the drops falling on the answer sheets! There was also a Dragons Quiz and a Guess the Weights Quiz. I spent at least 15 minutes weighing all the different pieces in both hands to put them in order of heaviest to lightest. Thought I'd cracked it but NO Jonathan won that one! Well done to him. Never mind. Better luck next time. All in all in was a really good event. Everyone enjoyed and it ended before we knew it. Our thanks go to Dennis and Heather for the hard work they put into organising the day so well. People started to drift off, getting into their vehicles and away. No, it hadn't stopped raining and yes, Ken and I set off again for the walk back to Bodfari! A good day was had by all. (Bill and Sue Allen won the Treasure Hunt through the woods and the Welsh Dragon quiz by Muriel and John Lewis. Thanks to all who supported this event. One member came from Jersey and two from Norfolk - they said it was worth the journey to spend the time with old friends and make new friends with such nice people. Many thanks to Heather and Denis for their hospitality.) Top How the first internal cochlear implant developed (2006) In an Australian TV interview Professor Graeme Clark who performed the first internal multi-channel implant operation in Melbourne in 1983 talked about how he developed the implant. “I couldn't work out how to get the electrode bundle to go round the tiny spiral, and it bothered me day in and day out, and I went away on holidays really struggling to find an answer. And then, amazingly, one day at the beach, eureka!, I was playing around with a shell like the inner ear and putting in bits of grass blades, and realised that if they were bendable at the tip and stiff towards the base, they would actually go around far enough. I raced home from my holidays and tried it out in the laboratory, and it worked. I was able put the multi-electrodes around the tiny spiral of the inner ear.” Professor Clark’s father was hard of hearing and that inspired him to become an ear, nose and throat surgeon and to study ways to help deaf people hear. He said he had been frustrated in his practice at seeing profoundly deaf people come and realising that he couldn't tell them they could do anything for them. But then he had the inspiration to go and do the work by electrically stimulating the hearing when he read an article by an American surgeon – Blair Simmons. He left his practice to go and live very poorly as a research student at the University of Sydney. The family second-hand car broke down and they couldn't even afford another second-hand car. But he could spend time thinking about his research at bus stops, walking here and there, instead of worrying about the frustrations of driving in the traffic. “I can tell you that I never felt, I don't think, so happy in my life, as when money and financial success were unimportant.” Professor Clark persevered with cochlear implants in spite of initial criticism from scientific and medical colleagues and he continues to work on ways of improving the implants. He is now collaborating with other researchers to develop intelligent polymers and grow nerves on them, so that better contact can be made with the hearing nerve, and so create better “bionic ears”. Also he hopes this will allow them to take people with broken spinal cords and bridge the gap and allow the nerves to connect from the top to the bottom so that they may be able to feel again, have body function and hopefully walk again. He said there are tremendous possibilities nowadays for combining, medicine and biology with the new advances in technology. This interesting interview is on this website. Top News from the Implant Programme (2006) The manufacturer of the batteries that we supply to CI patients will be changing later on this year. We are changing to "Rayovac Cochlear Plus" batteries instead of the "Power One Implant Plus" type that are used at the moment. It is possible that other audiology clinics may also change to this type. The new Rayovac batteries have been tested by Cochlear in Sydney and they should work just the same as the Power One batteries. If anyone has any queries about the new supply of batteries, please contact Louise Sivner here at the clinic: Louise.sivner@manchester.ac.uk Tel: 0161 275 3364 Fax 0161 275 3795 Letter from John McMahon (2006) My sister Glenda was given an implant at the end of April, and she is now going through that transition that we implantees know all so well. First, that fear that something has gone wrong because everything sounds so weird. Nothing seems the same as you remember how sounds used to be. Then you gradually begin to realise you are learning to hear all over again, in a totally different way. The slow proccess, with patience and understanding, finally begins to make sense,and you realise that you are actually hearing and understanding what is going on around. What a miracle it is to hear the birds singing, the sound of children’s laughter, rain hitting the window. Such small things but so wonderful when you are used to the sound of total silence. I have been switched on for over twelve years now, and every morning when I switch back on, I count my blessing when it actually works. Oh, how I hate that total silence now, and how happy I am that my sister is now one of us, and can now become part of society again. l find it exciting for her simply because I have been there and know how wonderful it is going to be for her discovering what she has missed in the many years of her deafness. I don’t know whether she is joining the Cicada Club, but shall try to persuade her to. Top A Talk at Cicada Conference by Trevor Smith, a LINK Outreach Officer edited report) (2006) Trevor became involved in LINK 25 years ago when he lost all his hearing very suddenly and he has stayed involved in one capacity or another since that time. He was a friend of Rosemary McCall, the lady who founded LINK. Rosemary worked in a hearing-aid department in Eastbourne and she noticed that there were people who had lost all their hearing but there was no provision for them at all. So she started getting little groups of people together in Eastbourne to try and help them support each other. Then the RNID heard about her and asked her if she would write articles for their magazine. From that she started getting hundreds of letters each month from people asking for help so she applied for a grant to get money to run a rehabilitation course for people who had lost all their hearing after developing normal speech. The first course was run in Eastbourne and it was a success so eventually they got enough money together to found a charity in 1972. In those days, there were no cochlear implants, no text telephones, no Typetalk, no subtitles on television. There was no Disability Discrimination Act, so people could say “I am not going to employ him, he is deaf.” That was the context of the world in which LINK initially developed. There were no hearing dogs and more or less your choices were you learned to lipread or you learned sign language and that was it. Link started with a two-week rehabilitation course in Eastbourne. By a slow, gentle process you could learn to interact with other people again, educate your family and friends about deafness and what it means. There was not as much information about deafness in the media as there is now. A person would think, like Trevor, that he was the only one in the whole world that lost his hearing. At LINK, you meet people in the same situation, build relationships, and learn about lip-reading, communication strategies and equipment. The course was very much about teaching you how to communicate with people and teaching others how to communicate with you and the centre stayed like that for many years up to the late ‘80s. Then the world changed and it was found unnecessary to have people there for the full 2 weeks as a lot of the information they could get from other sources like social workers or media. Teletext and subtitled television became available and telephone technology developed. The course changed and became a shorter weeklong course and it was very much about helping people adjust to their emotions. Focus changed more to adjusting emotionally and helping them to take their life forward. Now LINK has weeklong programmes, people arrive on the Sunday for introductions and on Monday are introduced to goal setting, life management skills. How you can set goals knowing what you really want and learning how to focus can help you. Even now Trevor meets people who have been deaf for many years, that don’t even know the television has subtitles on it. Never heard of cochlear implants, don't know what hearing dogs are. LINK was looking at how they reach those people and they started an Outreach programme and trained a number of volunteers based in various part of the country and if anyone, social worker, doctor or whatever, can notify LINK if someone has lost his/her hearing, then an Outreach worker will go and visit them. Trevor has done it many times and often the fact they are meeting another deafened person for the first time in their lives when they thought they were the only person can be a life changing experience. Link became aware there are a range of services such as Citizens' Advice Bureau, other charities and other organisations that could provide support and information for deafened people but those organisations don't know anything about deafness or they have the limited stereotyped information that you either lipread or use sign language and if you are not doing one or the other there is something wrong with you, you still encounter that now. LINK recently got a grant and started a major programme to educate as many other organisations and charities about deafness specifically with an emphasis on deafened people and their needs. And getting the message across that not all deaf people are the same. We are not a homogeneous group. LINK is also looking at how they can influence government bodies, health care services, to really understand needs of deaf people and meet those needs. LINK did a research project called Hidden Lives, it's a available on their website and you can download it from the website. It is research on the impact deafness has on people, how it affects their lives, how it affects their mental health and interaction with others, how it affects employment, their relationships with partners, families, relationships at work that kind of thing. We all know this information but it has to be presented in this format before anyone takes notice. It was published last year and it has had impact. Presenting this to Lottery Commission or health care services, they are looking at getting more funding into this area of deafness. It is seriously underfunded. LINK look to do more and more research to raise awareness and get LINK people into mainstream system so we don't get isolated and become a ghetto of deafened people but become part of the mainstream and mainstream recognizes us and understands about our situation. Link continues to develop new ways to help deafened people. Challenging Deafness was adapted from a course Challenging Arthritis, to show ways of living with acquired deafness. You talk through various strategies of coping with anxiety or stress caused by your situation and making sure you are the healthiest you can be and showing how being healthy reacts with other things in your life and puts your disability in perspective. LINK started looking at how it could expand the service. People are going down there for one week and although it can be a major turning point in their lives it is not going to sustain or help them for the next 60, 70 years, or whatever. The latest development at LINK is to become a membership organisation and arrange meetings for members to meet and Link up. Link is looking at linking all the deafened people in the country together should they want it. Putting people in contact, bringing people together. Last year they had a conference in London and are having another one this year on 14th October. That is the second national convention. If you contact LINK they can give you details of it. If you think you could be an Outreach officer for LINK or are interested in one of their courses contact them at LINK – 19 Hartfield Road, Eastbourne, East Sussex. BN21 2AR Email - linkcntr@dircon.co.uk Top Diary of My ABI by Alan Gordon (2006) Alan had acoustic neuromas removed from his hearing nerve in 1998 leaving him completely deaf. He has NF2 (Neurofibromatosis type two) and bi-lateral neuromas are one of the symptoms. He was offered an auditory brain stem implant (an ABI) to restore some sensation of sound. He was only the fifth person in England to have one and as he could not find much personal information about ABIs before his operation he wrote this diary so that others would know more about the procedure. HEY I’M SWITCHED ON TODAY Yes today I’ve had the ABI switched on, and what do I hear “Hmmmmmmm”. The device I have had fitted is made by Cochlear and is a 22 channel device. We started by hooking me up to a heart monitor, just in case. Then they switched on one channel at a time, starting with low volume and I had to say when I could hear something and what I could hear and how loud it was. Switched on the first channel. What can I hear….nothing, volume up…..nothing, volume up…..I hear a Hmmmmmmm. Great, it’s working, set the volume to a comfortable level. Try the next channel. Channel 2 gave me a swallowing sensation even before I heard anything, so it was left off. Channel 22 gave me a sensation of being zapped by electricity across the forehead as well as a Hmmmm, so that was left off. In all, 5 channels were left off. About 10 channels gave me a sensation like a small electric shock from very faint to uncomfortable; the 3 uncomfortable ones were left off. So now I have 17 channels working. After checking the channels were working OK and at a comfortable level, we then tried to compare the pitch of the working channels, one after the other, is A higher than B etc. After having got all the channels in order they disconnected the computer test device and switched to the ABI. Now what do I hear, Hmmm, Hmmm, Hmmm, Hmmm, Hmmm, Hmmm, Every noise sounds the same Hmmm, if you ask me “ what can you hear” I’ll hear “Hmmm, Hmmm, Hmmm, Hmmm,” I can hear the phone ring Hmmm, Hmmm,….. Hmmm, Hmmm,…… Hmmm, Hmmm. I had to switch the ABI off whilst in the kitchen, because it just sounded like Hmmmmmmmmmmmm all the time. The faint shock sensation, like driving over a hump back bridge, seems to build up for some sounds, so when I go back on Friday for my first review I’ll ask for these channels to be switched off for a time. I know I’ve only been switched on a few hours and it takes years to fully benefit. So I’ll keep on trying and keep reporting on how I get on. MY ABI, TAKE TWO I returned to the Hospital today for a recap on the programming of the ABI. I mentioned the faint shock sensation that I get along with the Hmmmmm, the audiologist said that we would programme each channel again, and that I was to say if I got any sensation along with the Hmmmm. She ended up switching off another 5 channels, leaving me with 12 working channels. One channel she switched off was giving me ‘butterflies’ in my stomach, like driving too fast over a hump back bridge, One channel gave me a tingling in the jaw and the other a tingling round the right ear where the ABI is. With these switched off I now have no sensation. Only the Hmmmmmm. We did a few exercises with words like PRUNE and STRAWBERRY, and the difference I heard and whether I could recognise the words. I couldn’t recognise the words but I knew the difference. PRUNE being Hmmm and STRAWBERRY being HmmHmmHmmm Then she read a story and I had to say which word she was up to when she stopped, without lip-reading. I was wrong most of the time but it made me realise the different sound of the words. Well, I’ve got some homework to do before I go back next week so I’ll get on with it. I now hear the keyboard and modem and printer which I haven’t heard for ages and washing the pots is like world war three. I have to look and see what is making the noise, but I know a noise is there. Is this an advantage ????…. We will see. MY ABI, TAKE THREE I went back to the hospital to see the implant team for a 3 monthly review, to see how I was getting on with the ABI. We decided not to adjust the processor again as every time the processor is re-programmed the noises are slightly different and I have to re-tune my hearing to that of the ABI. So we left the programme alone to give me chance to adjust to it. They gave me some tests to try to assess what I could hear and if the ABI was of any benefit. We started with environmental noises; they played some computer generated noises to see if I recognised them. The telephone was easy to recognise from the rhythm of the sound. I recognised music, as different from speech, alarm type noises I was able to guess. The sound of the Pelican road crossing I didn’t recognise until I was walking back to work, and as I crossed the road at a crossing I heard the bleeps of the crossing, and I recognised it as one of the sounds in the test. I then watched a video of a man saying small phrases. First I had the ABI “on”, and then phrases with the ABI “off”. The overall assessment was that I was good at lip-reading but I was slightly better with the ABI on. This is an improvement because when I was tested after one month with the ABI I had a better result without the ABI on. In general the ABI does help me in my day-to-day environment. It doesn’t allow me to hear. I am unfortunately DEAF and anything that makes my life easier is worth a try. At home I can hear the textphone ring and conversation with my partner Janet has improved. Janet thinks it’s easier for her to talk to me with the ABI on as I have better understanding of her speech. Last Sunday I was in the garden and I heard a sound I didn’t recognise. It was similar to a house burglar alarm but different. I asked Janet what the noise was; she told it was a blackbird sat in the tree. I have heard it again since and recognise it. When I’m out walking the dog I hear other sounds that I put down to being |